Tomorrow Will Bring Sunday's News
the opening lines
Yesterday, I shared the news that my first novel for adults, Tomorrow Will Bring Sunday’s News, is due to be released from Tursulowe Press in April. I shared, too, that the opening pages of the book now officially appear in that storied Irish magazine Icarus Magazine, edited by Cat Grogan and Louise Norris. My print version will soon be making its way across the seas, to me.
But because The Hush and the Howl is far more about words themselves, and the art in between (as opposed to announcements), I am dedicating this post to, well, words. The opening words in the novel.
She Lies in Her Bed, in Her Room, Listening
The glug in the gutter. The calico across the narrow of the street, new to its own mew. October 21. 1969. Yesterday sound was the yellow fur of the sun behind the room where she lies. It was the sound of the basketball in the park past the alley, slapped against the ground so many times by an invisible hand that she would have done anything to crush it into silence, but what could she do? Who would carry her the distance, lift her head, find her words, and besides, it is raining now. The pleasing pattering of liquid weather.
Her mattress has been rutted by the long lengths of her illness. She feels, beneath her, the places her bones and flesh have been, the four depressions of the breakfast tray that her husband brought during the many months when she could still eat, or really just sip, a little. Beef broth. Orange-flavored Jell-O. Chocolate milk. Applesauce that her daughter made with the ripe McIntoshes and the hard sticks of cinnamon. Here we are, her husband would say, settling the pretty painted tray down among the white sheets, applying just enough pressure that the round feet of the wooden legs would become indelible in the deflated mattress.
Had he sat with her on the edge of the bed, the pretty painted would have gone sideways—lost its footing, tipped, released the bowl, the glass, the dish, the slosh onto the sheets he’d stopped washing, for she no longer had the strength to help him strip them from beneath her. To move to this side. To move to that side. To not get lost inside the puzzle of staying put but moving.
True, he might have brought the cushioned rocking chair with the string doily from the other room and sat right there, the two of them, together. He might have talked or hummed or listened, like she listened, to the weather. But that would have surprised them both, and they were long past surprises—the news of her illness being tired and ancient, his desire to keep living not—what is the word?—poignant. His desire to keep living was—here is the word—paramount.
A terrific paramounting wish. She makes new words now. Sluices others.
I'm hooked. "True, he might have brought the cushioned rocking chair with the string doily from the other room and sat right there, the two of them, together. He might have talked or hummed or listened, like she listened, to the weather. But that would have surprised them both, and they were long past surprises ..." Gorgeous.
A lovely enticement. Reminds me of a story my mother began—without your language skills, but the concept. I’ll be looking for more of this story. Congratulations!