One-Sentence Story: Ordinary

Laundry Drying, Petit Gennevilliers by Gustave Caillebotte

I went outside at night to take the laundry down without my shoes on—that was my mistake—God knows what you could step on in the pitch dark—after all, we were on a small, privately owned island with no street lights or even other houses in the near vicinity—but it was a warm evening, clear and breezy, and I couldn’t resist the novelty of being comfortable outside in my shorts and bare feet in the dusky solitude of a summer night in the country, and as I stood taking the laundry off the line and piling it into a wicker basket, fireflies darted around me, punctuating the dark with their tiny exquisite flickers—you must know what I mean because what can be said about fireflies that hasn’t already been said before?—then when my basket was full, I casually ended my communion with the loveliness of night and carried the laundry basket into the bright busyness of the kitchen, where everyone else was gathered, talking and reading and playing board games—my husband, our old friends Paul and Marie, and all the kids—both the kids that belonged to the four of us and the two boys, Tom and Joe,11 and 14, whom I’d never met before but whom I had taken into my heart because they were staying with us while their father was at home in New York City dying of cancer at 43—and after I passed through the kitchen and was on my way up the back stairs to the our bedroom, I felt something clinging to the back of my right heel—yuck, what was it? did I step in some horse shit?—but when I reached down to pull it off, it jumped from my hand and latched on to my other heel—I felt a small shiver of horror—God, what was it?— and I quickly pulled the thing off my left heel and tossed it down the stairs, calling out to the others, “Hey guys, could you come check something out for me? Some huge bug was sticking to my foot and I threw it on the floor and I don’t even want to look at it!” so Paul came running in with a paper towel, found the creature in the dark corner to which I was pointing, and took it with him into the light of the kitchen, saying, “It’s a stag beetle. And what a beauty it is, too! Come look everyone!” and all the kids and all the adults stood up to admire it—it was large and perfectly formed and glossy and black, and I felt a small surge of pride at its beauty—after all, it was my stag beetle—and Tom and Joe joined in as they had all that week, laughing and commenting—who could really understand what those two were going through—and what if this is all there is, what if all there ever is, is laundry and fireflies and stag beetles and friends on vacation on an island while someone’s father is dying in New York, and what if I never publish my stories and never write the novel I want to write, and what if I turn out to be completely ordinary—well, what if?

by Nina Zolotow

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