On June 20, Chandra and Stephanie participated in Corporeal Writing’s Mycelial Weave: A Generative Writing Lab with Janice Lee and Lidia Yuknavitch. They were asked to bring a rock as portal and responded to several writing prompts that experimented with new story shapes and forms. https://www.corporealwriting.com
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Manufactured waves crash at our feet. A fawn walks too close to home. The heat is inescapable. The solstice draws near.
Clinging to me in the water, my daughter climbs onto my back. Watching the waves, we jump, mistime it, and go under. Our neighbors’ Peruvian lilies droop. Their faded blossoms dive to the yellow leaves pasted to the asphalt. Women go into labor early because of the heat. Wet-bulb temperatures spread. The moon is heavy and full. Daylight reaches its apex.
On the way home I examine my feet. The bottom of my big toe is torn. My skin feels waterlogged. Birds flock to the parking space where a thick, white line of rice runs down the center, confusing drivers. They pull into the spot, think better of it, and then reverse. Ants circle the dropped empanada filling, bright and green, leaving a greasy shadow on the concrete. A man is critically injured by the Banshee. He entered a restricted zone to retrieve his phone and was stuck at 68 mph. He succumbed to his injuries less than a week later. A staffer asks the campers what planet they want to live on when they grow up. One says Mercury. Another says Mars. My daughter asks which planet we are on now.