Anisette Studio

Quiet, sunny, and my coffee is beside me. I began writing a murder mystery yesterday, to see if I could. After all, and at this late date in time, I have finally got around to reading about Agatha Christie, both books and autobiographies. I also like learning she felt woman after a certain age were renewed and had a great deal to offer. I said, “YES!” As that is how I feel. The things that once ran through my mind and stuck there, do not. I finally feel free to learn about who I am! I am not even married now that Thomas is no longer with me. I hate the label widow. I see myself as single. But not exactly as is put out there____ I feel to wise for bullshit. And now I can learn about me, enjoy grandmotherhood, learn about who my adult children are, and at last I am not sidetrack with art or writing. Not if I don’t wish to be. You,___ me! Does need to live life and experience it. So much of life can be just the studio or at the desk. It is important to go elsewhere to see more of the world. I promised myself that! To do what I have not yet done. So maybe I am not always at the desk or in the studio____ one and the same here. It’s all good.

I am surprised how the murder mystery simple came rolling out. I do not or have not got in to blood and gore. But Christie does not___ it’s all about who done it, and clues. Here is a bit of the rough draft.

The Life of Iris

Iris stood at her sideboard, filled her favorite pastel teal mug with steaming hot coffee, naked, no cream today! She popped home made bread into the toaster, dug out the cute little butter knife and its accompanying cut class butter dish! “Real butter is the only way to go! She thought. “Honey? NO,___just simple bread and butter.” Then she would have to leave to go to “his house!” She would drop the things off for her kids and leave. She hated going there! It brought everything back in a rush! A lived video of what had happened that would stir up all the questions of why? WHY had he done what he did? She would never know. Her body felt the same feelings it had over and over again. Iris did not know it then, but it would one day be something she did not relive, feel, over and over. She would not need to understand any of it anymore! She would move on!

For to long her compulsive need to understand what had happened to her filled to much of her days. The compulsive need to understand too great. Years of time would be spent on asking why. But luckily you do move on. Her second husband had changed her world! Her life had become one of love and laughter.

The dread of being there, suddenly became a nightmare. Why was it that this house was so bend on filling to the brim with shit! She thought! SHiIT! SHIT! SHIT! Why me?

Iris found herself looking down into the basement, the cellar stairs____ into the dark basement. She had knocked on the front door, and there had been no response, so she turned the handle to step in. Seeing the open cellar door she had thought John was down there. “Oh! He is down cellar, and that is why he did not hear me knock.” She thought. “I will just sit at the table and wait.” To go to the table meant she would go past the open cellar door looking down____. And there he was! Not looking up at her making some sort of derogatory comment, but instead he was laying upside down at an odd angle, blood pooled under his face. His face was bent back, his eyes and mouth open. She jumped back! As he suddenly moved! Sam John’s cat had catapulted off his back and then came flying up the stairs past John! John did not move again; no sound came from him as the cat catapulted off his back and then flew up the stairs. This replayed the scene in her mind so it made sense. She started to go down, no! She did not want to go down! She imagined him springing to up! This was some cruel joke John was playing at! “Not funny! John!” She said loudly. She felt anger begin to rise. A cruel joke! This was a cruel joke! “John?” It seemed silly to call out his name as she looked down. “No, this is not a joke.” His color was not normal___ He must have fell? Her heart hurt, John dead, the kids! There was a big roaster and its rack tipped up cover up a little, it now sat on the basement floor to the left of John. Was it sitting there for some reason or had John been carrying it? John did not sit things on the floor he would have put it on the shelf. Why did it have to be her to find him lying there? She stared down not being able to look away. The basement floor was always cold she thought. Johns’ legs lay upward, “____for three steps____ And one foot is part way off, the other under the second step. Had he tripped? She wanted to move him to somehow make him comfortable. How he lay would hurt she reasoned. She had loved him once. Then this moved into her questioning____ Was it ever love? Was it love if you wanted to love someone and yet, it never felt like love, not being loved in return so that you might feel loved and love in return! This had been what it had felt like. John rarely said “I love you.” He had always said “Me, too! After she had said the “I love you’s she did not feel were real, not from the heart.” She had taken off her wedding band, he never wore his saying it would only get caught on something. He had not given her a diamond… he had given her a singer sewing machine and joked about it. Her father had given her a diamond that he had given to someone else. It had been stolen later. John was indifferent to this. It had been her mothers idea that she should have a diamond. Her secret thoughts had been people don’t really fall in love, we are friends I feel. At least I wanted to understand him, his hurts. But he never let me in. Did not give up what really hurt him or made him happy. All John had done was work hard on the family farm. She had romantized farming and being the farm wife. But it had been lonely. She was alone, and lonely all but for her children! She had fallen hard in love with them one by one!

Well, there is more, I will keep building on it. They say the best writing is from what you know, and make sense of. Being the observer has its benefits.

Best wishes! Pejj Nunes

May love and laughter fill your day, your life!