That's awesome, Kristin.

Yeah, really.

It's really powerful, Kristin. Do you know where the piece is going?

"I hold with those who favour fire...."

That piece reminded me.

Deb, yes! If this goes anywhere, I actually want to use that poem as a recurring theme. How interesting that you thought of it.

P-C (edit, and others!), thanks for the compliment!

My narrator is a little bitter, but she changes throughout the story. In my mind's eye, it's a story about what it means to be human when you are unable to do the things that most people think of as most human -- eat, have sex, be active, etc.. In my grandfather's case, he couldn't eat or write or type or even breathe for himself. He could barely talk. I think there's something there I want to explore further, and this narrator may be my gateway to do so.

It's really powerful, Kristin. Do you know where the piece is going?

Not entirely. The beginning came to me all at once one night, but I haven't mapped it out yet.

I think it's going to be an interesting thing to work on. I've been temporarily paralysed from the waist down (post car crash, the big one I was in, off the mountain) and the things it does to your head, if it happens suddenly, as an adult, are profound. And the iron lung version of, done when I was a child, was an entirely different story.

They won't be comfortable shoes for you to walk in while you're working on it, but I'm betting you've already considered that.

And the iron lung version of, done when I was a child, was an entirely different story.

Yes. He was in an iron lung for years.

They won't be comfortable shoes for you to walk in while you're working on it, but I'm betting you've already considered that.

Oh yes. Lots and lots of research--including talking to my grandmother, if she'll talk about it (this is not the Gram who lives with us)--and many painful truths to face and questions to ask.

I think that is why I haven't invested in it yet. I don't want to start working on this when I can't really focus on it, because it's bound to take a lot of energy.

Yeah, I was an iron lung for eleven days the first time (polio) and four days the second time (what used to be called double lobar pneumonia, a complication). I hadn't turned seven yet and the memory of lying there hating everything, everybody and deciding that there was no Big Kindly God, is vivid and ineradicable. I basically got out physically functional out of pure spite.

I can't even imagine dealing with it for years. But the emotional investment that's going to take, if you're to do it honestly, is going to burn.

It's not a novel in my head. It's an action movie. Here goes:

Kit ran her finger lightly along John's neck as he slept. She tried to concentrate, to immerse herself in him to the exclusion of all else, but nothing was working. If he wasn't awake, demanding her attention, if they weren't fighting (oh, how marvelous a team they made) or fucking (better yet), she was still alone.

She could keep using John to drown out Mark, and John certainly wasn't complaining. But Mark didn't need drowning out, or forgetting, or ignoring. Adrenaline intoxication was all well and good, but it was no way to mourn a lost husband.

"John. Wake up."

DaYUM, ita.

But the emotional investment that's going to take, if you're to do it honestly, is going to burn.

Oh yes. Scares the living crap out of me, to tell you the truth. The level of trauma it caused his family, too...hard for everyone to talk about it. I know my father wrote a short story about visiting his father in the iron lung. I remember he tried to show it to me when I was too young to get it, and I think my confused response turned him off from ever wanting to show it to me again. I hope I can change his mind.

Polio is an evil, evil disease.

He had fought in WWII, was gone for years while my Gram raised four kids. Came home, contracted polio a couple of years later. Was paralyzed from neck down the rest of his life.

My dad lost most of the muscle mass on his legs permenently from the evil illness, but he never talks about it. Never talks much about his childhood, actually. I have a lot of poems about that.

Anyway, because of the trauma surrounding this topic, I'm wary about starting it now. But everyone do me a favor? Now and then, every few months or so, could someone remind me about it? Even if I don't start actively working on it for a while, I want to keep it perculating.

Hey--at some point, could we maybe have poetry "drabbles" as well (100 word max would likely still work)? I'd love a chance to share poetry along with the short narrative pieces we've been doing.