Sit In Here

"He hates coming home to this, says he's always known how the town cancers and folds around any exits." Wow! Meg. This sentence alone just blows me away. . .fave

God this is wonderful. It tickles something in my memory. Fave.

Thank you MarAnne! so nice of you to say so. I almost changed that sentence too. I'm glad i didn't:)

Wow, thank you Mr. Inhoff!

If you ever write a novel, I would buy it, pay retail. Then I would read it every five years to see how my mind has changed over time. It would be a benchmark ... We all need benchmarks. So you should write a novel.

fav

I can feel this:
"He opens his legs, and I sit up against him like a wall ..." A delicious image.

Wonderfully turned from physical to emotional. You sit us with you in the cold at the top of the hill and in the 2nd half we're let go, rushing with you, dizzy with thoughts racing and lifted into those hard final words: anything to get the fuck out. *

Damn, Doug. That's well done, too. Post it.

Wow. The "mother's breast" line is chilling. Bravo!

One of my favorites of yours, Meg - and there are many. *

Yep, you did it here.
*

thank you Jim. I AM considering writing a novel, strange timing you should say that, and that yesterday I said to myself that this summer I must at least try.

thank you david james as always!

Jessica thank you! It's always so good to see you here!

Thanks so much Sam. Wow. really? that means a lot I have to send this out somewhere.

thank you susan & i love that profile picture!

Wonderful voice.

thank you, Isabell!

This gives me the chills. * And I want to see that novel!

thanks, Claire! I will try.

Yes, a scene in a movie, and the popcorn tastes perfect, thanks to your excellent writing.

love this, Meg.
*

thank you JMC!

Rene - so very appreciated!

Excellent and very sad. Loved this: He lives in dreams with me but he wants that to end. This feels like a scene in a movie which comes somewhere in the middle, when the popcorn tastes not so perfect.

Amazing writing as usual.

This has a dreamy quality to me...I dig it. Super good last line Meg.

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How did I miss this little masterwork? Meg knows how much happens in a few moments in a life-how many startling beautiful threatening awesome awful elements define us between heartbeats.

Wow, thank you David Woodruff aka Kyle Hemmings. Love it anytime you read my work it makes me very happy because I value your opinion strongly.

Jules, thank you super woman!

Hey Martha - thanks for taking the time to read with the little one! Wow. Thank you.

thank you for sharing this story, meg.

--how the town cancers and folds around exits--

don't we know it--we do.

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isn't landon a wonderful writer? i featured one of his story at MR in the summer 2007 fiction issue, and it still stays with me....a dead baby story.

"pop like bugs"

"piano fingers"

"the town cancers and folds around exits"

Every sentence here just snaps, Meg. Incredible.

nice. skilfully worked. lovely imagery and stars that pop like bugs. all that and somehow it resonates with my own private new hampshire. especially the last line. *

Reading this is like looking through both ends of a telescope at the same time. *

Terrific, Meg, as good as the best in Damn Sure Right. I especially love the ending. Send it out! ***

Gary - Landon is a jewel of a writer and a jewel of a person. Yes.

More on that later too Gary and thank you again.

Neil, thank you! Thanks for liking those sentences and telling me so. That means a lot!

Stephen H. King - thank you my friend!

Jane and Andrew both of you. I am so happy this one works.

This has that stepping into dream with someone feel to it. I love that. The way the mind can escape. Isn't that why so many people love to read? It's why I read a lot of times. Sometimes you just have get the fuck out of wherever you are emotionally, physically, spiritually.

Love this one.

Fave

"I'll follow him into a deepblue anything to get the fuck out."

Destined to be a classic line. Check that--it already is.

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fanfuckingtastic!

One of your best.

This is so good I would fave it again if I could!

the Jeff Landon micro masterpiece that inspired "Sit In Here". http://blipmagazine.net/archive-4/2010-weekly/jeff-landon/

Bill thank you!

Joshua - very kind! i am so glad!

Meg, this is a very good story.
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thank you Miles!

As great as it is brief. I'll keep an eye out for bugs popping in the starry night.

"I let my mind do things and then I stop it from happening but it happens."

I like this line a lot, the way it is structured fits the content perfectly. I might say take out the "and" and "from" for maximal affect.

Great though!

Awesome! *

thank you for the close read Alex! Much appreciated!

thank you Jim!

Excellent piece, Meg.

Wonderful story Meg. I definitely think there could be even more to this if you wanted to keep unraveling just what you already have.

applause from a new fan

You know how much I love this story. Faver!

I dunno if you "read" a story of this caliber -- it sticks to the roof of my mind and I have to digest it.

The same thing happens with Damn Sure Right; one story at a time, reread and think, reread and think.

You might be an enchanting Word Witch, Megz. *

Marc, Roberto, Cheryl, Julie big thanks to all of you. I'm overwhelmed.

Ramon! Thank you so much.

He opens his legs, and I sit up against him like a wall while he warms my ear with those piano fingers curling over.

Trying to decide if that's my favorite sentence ever. Might well be.

You hit the perfect balance between cinematic (in the sense that I can picture this scene perfectly), and literary (in that you manage to fill in the interior spaces in a way no film can). Great piece.

Wow, thanks Jim. That sentence completely changed in my final edit. I made a quick decision (I had edited it too many times and was about to go insane) to cut two sentences and make them one. the wall image just came to my mind when I blended the two sentences together. I like it also, but it feels like a thing that decided itself!

Meg, this is one of your finest. It has such sensitivity, such finesse.

thank you Connor! I am off to read your story later today! Looking forward to it!

I liked the line about the popcorn.

"This feels like a scene in a movie which comes somewhere in the middle, when the popcorn tastes not so perfect." I love that line too.

Every line is intriguing and is a portal to the many feelings in the world being brought to life. We know we're sometimes looking at it sidelong because it's so hard to hold. Great writing! *

Meg, I think this is my favorite of all yours I've read. So many perfect moments - the lumpy hill that bothers, the popping stars, the cancering town, the last line. Put it aside for Damn Sure Right II. Peace...

oh my goodness! Jim Thomsen thank you.

Greg, thanks for saying so!

Kathy - you are someone I'm really so glad to be getting to know. Thank you so much for this!

Oh Linda that means a lot. Tomorrow is my birthday and this overwhelming support of this little story is making me so happy. Damn Sure Right 2! What a thought that is. I love that thought.

Loved the contrast between the winter landscape and the warmth of their bodies and between the past and the future in this story.

I wonder why it took a year to finish.

Love this one, Meg!

thank you Berit and Lori!

I feel for the narrator. Follow up? Please?

I love this, and know exactly that point when the popcorn starts not to taste so good!

Love the piano fingers and the deep blue anything. Good one, Meg!

You were able to mix so many kinds of desperation into the desire to escape all of them. Like Gill, I want more.

You capture the desperation of the moment truly... Which is to say, I remember feeling this way... i found my self wanting to read more, much more. I wanted to see where her desperation would take her... To see what the "deep blue anything" is (a great line)... The emotion, again rings true. And, again, because the trueness and youthfullness of it, it reminded me in ways of Salinger, another great writer.

meg, turn this into a novel!

I'm in love with:
Clear stars that pop like bugs in the sky.

There is always so much happening in your tiny stories on so many levels. Each story teaches me more about how to be a better writer.

You capture that sense of small-town claustrophobia so well with this piece.