Bella Vista: Madge Makes Up Her Mind

One Trick Pony

For the last fifteen or so years I've been living with a bunch of dead guys at a motel in West Texas. Like the characters in my stories, I'd really like to move on, see the world, go places. But I'm just like them. Anchored by love, worn down by circumstances and fascinated by how much there really is underneath it all. So I keep writing their stories and tell myself that someday, when I've got this all out of my system, I'll write deep, meaningful literature about... something else. In the meantime, this is a place for the short attention spanned. I'm making a commitment to keep it small here. Flash fiction and scenes from the life inspired by, The Bella Vista Motel.

Thanks for reading.

Pamila

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Madge Makes Up Her Mind - 6

The West side of the Bella Vista motel suffered the full force of the afternoon sun every day, but the last room, number 12, gained a small advantage from the shade of the trees in the grove, and the back wall never saw the sun. Madge felt the improbable coolness of the smooth plaster next to her ear, and on her palm as she steadied herself against the wall. The scent of the plaster came up softly, a clean smell to her nose, its mineral chalkiness, strangely, causing her mouth to water and stirring up a fleeting image of her own small hands squeezing white clay. She swallowed and listened to the sound of nothing happening; a blank wall and her own pulse stretching out the minutes. Slappy stepped out of the walkway into the clearing, stopped, put his hands in his pockets and swung his face around to meet her eye before he said, "All cleaned up in there, any sign of her out here?" She took her hand off of the wall self-consciously and wiped it on the side of her skirt as she turned to look out at the vast open land outside of the clearing and answered, "I think she must have run off back home, and I mean to go and get her back."