It was jarring to go from the language of the first paragraph to the word "Dentyne." It all has an evocative feel to it, though.

See, that was the part I liked best - from uh-oh to ah-HA!

Dentyne was his default--it was the only gum at the time that didn't stick to dentures. It was also the third element in his distinctive Sunday smell, the one that cements the sense-memory for me.

sj, yours is very powerful. I do wonder if your using the phrase, "awkward teenager" twice was deliberate, for emphasis and comparison?

PC, I'm so pop music illiterate I think I'm getting hung up on the music I'm unfamiliar with rather than your writing. Which I'm still thinking about, so there's worth there for me.

Dentyne was his default--it was the only gum at the time that didn't stick to dentures

YES! My father, same thing. He had a badly deviated septum and he chewed gum to keep his ears from popping, and he was another Dentyne fan, for the same reason. He liked the minty ones, though.

PC, I'm so pop music illiterate I think I'm getting hung up on the music I'm unfamiliar with rather than your writing.

I only mentioned the song for the benefit of those who knew it; it's not really necessary at all to the understanding of the drabble. I wanted some inspiration, and it came up on Winamp, so I wrote about it.

Which I'm still thinking about, so there's worth there for me.

Oh, awesome. Thanks. (I guess I should mention that, unlike the majority of the others posted, mine was a totally fabricated memory. And was supposed to be from a female point of view.)

The second half, where it goes away from the memory and starts talking about the song...is the metaphor as obvious as I thought it was? Sometimes I write something with one meaning and discover it has another as I'm writing it, but then I don't want to call attention to it for fear of being heavy-handed, but then I end up being too subtle.

PC, the metaphor was obvious, yes, but I'd rather assumed that was the intent. It wasn't heavy-handed, and the last line was nice and wry.

Bev, I love the texture (stealing Deb's word) of your drabble. Powerful!

uh-oh to ah-HA!

Deb, isn't that a Robert Fulgham quote? It rang a bell for me.

I'm so happy to have an approachable writing task right now! I've been daunted by my longer works lately, and this is a good way to start to get comfortable in my own writing skin again.

Deb, isn't that a Robert Fulgham quote?

Don't know - I haven't read him. It just popped into my head as appropriate for my reaction.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

It wasn't fair. Every other time the song had played in the last few years she'd been able to change the station, change the topic, hit the stop button, bolt. Today she was hedged in by propriety, sorrow and fellow mourners.

Tears slammed her, not just tears for her grieving loved ones, but tears for herself, for the conversations she could now never have, the personal loss filling and escaping hidden spaces today?s funeral could not touch on its own.

Caribbean keening melded with bayou tears and she could feel she was not alone walking the two roads at once.

I commented on this one in LJ. What is it about music?