Finding Room by Jen Burke
_Queer Shorts_ is coming soon! Here’s a snippet from Jen Burke’s “Finding Room” (also posted at her blog here):
I have never had an affair with a married person. I am not your first affair during your long marriage. I need to hear it all again and again. Tell me. I ask you many questions about the other women. There were plenty of indiscretions on your part. There was the clichéd secretary you slept with over a period of years. You started sleeping with her during a blizzard when the roads were sheeted with ice. You couldn’t drive home, so you slept at work. She was the one who had a raspy voice and made necklaces woven out of chicken wire in her spare time. You haven’t spoken to her in fifteen years. I always ask about her. You never tell me what color her hair was, how she wore it.
I need to think that you are a good woman in a bad situation. That your character is somehow not responsible for your decades of the same pain and the same relentless dedication to a man who insists you are not vital. I want to see the world and your narrative as you see it, to believe that you are not responsible. I want to hear how you shape the world you inhabit.
I watch you lecture your students on a type of representational art one day, as I stand at the back of the hall, the “EXIT” sign glowing over my head like a halo.
“Don’t repeat reality,” you tell them. “Flat, silvery mirrors already exist for simple, accurate repetition. Look at your face in a spoon, on moving water, in tinted subway windows flying by, in someone’s dilated pupils. You know it’s your reflection. The contours are still unique and distinguishable. It looks like you. It is you. But you know it’s very far from reality.”
THANK YOU!
[…] Excerpt from Jen Burke’s “Finding Room” […]
[…] Daily Dose of Queer previously published excerpts here and here. […]
[…] Maria Angeline’s first book-child, Queer Shorts, is also available. My short story about an extramarital affair is included. You can see an excerpt here and here. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
[…] Maria Angeline’s first book-child, Queer Shorts, is also available. My short story about an extramarital affair is included. You can see an excerpt here and here. Share this post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
[…] Daily Dose of Queer published excerpts from me here and here. […]