I Draw a Map
by Amanda Deo
I draw a map. We are here.
My finger points out the chip on your shoulder. It's sitting on top of a mountain. I sink a red push-pin into it.
You are there. The tide has pushed you back to where you belong. [At least where I think you belong.] I draw your location on my thighs. It takes up both legs; it's far. I think about showing you but something comes up. The phone rings. I tell her I don't want to donate to the PBA.
I paint my toenails over the Continental US. Or what's supposed to look like it, any way. I'm not quite sure; I'm an immigrant after all. I push the bottle over by accident and the blue states become red. For a second I think I might believe in Christ. My dog sticks his nose in the nail polish and I breathe and everything goes back to normal again; I'm Christless.
I draw a map so that we know where we stand. I think about showing you but something comes up.
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Author's Note
Inspiration just came from geography, a relationship which is having a tough time deciding where it is and what it is.
wonderful, quite zen in its way and form - both the language and the POV. great title and ending, too...so casually in and out of the map business...
hehe Thanks, Marcus! I've been reading some of your stories this morning as well. SO good!
Hi Amanda. Wonderful. Love the imagery, the spare language, the weaving in and out of the "map" and the narrator's reality.
i like this. i like maps too, and i like what you're doing with mapping here. my only suggestion follows from the fact that i also like repetition, but using it in a way that is unstable (the same phrases doing different things across a short piece for example)---in the paragraph about "drawing your location on my thighs" (which i like lots) i wonder whether the last words in the paragraph could be "I think about showing you but something came up."
nice piece though. interesting and fun.
Thanks, Tina!
Stephen, I will take your suggestions. They are very good ones.
Beyond the map I get into this progression:
I push the bottle over by accident and the blue states become red. For a second I think I might believe in Christ. My dog sticks his nose in the nail polish and I breathe and everything goes back to normal again; I'm Christless.
That is a logic and sequence only a gifted and off-beat mind could produce. I am a little lost as to the "vomiting a combination . . . " segment, just seems out of place to me a bit.
Walter,
Thank you for the comments! I actually happen to agree with you about that particular line. I think I was getting stuck at that point and the piece could do without it for sure.
Fantastic writing Amanda! Why not add this to the already kickass line-up of fiction we have for the Spring Thunderclap issue? A great fit, I add, as I map it out.
"My finger points out the chip on your shoulder."
Love this. *
Thanks, Kim!
An allegory, until this: "For a second I think I might believe in Christ. My dog sticks his nose in the nail polish and I breathe and everything goes back to normal again; I'm Christless."
Fascinating!
Another gem of a piece! It's just full of twists and turns, unexpectedly jumping off of cliffs, skydiving into new imagery, jolting changes of pace yet still manages to keep rolling along in its own natural rhythm, whacky, quirky and basically kicks ass!