All My Pretty Hates
Wail
Love has gone a-rocketing.
That is not the worst;
I could do without the thing,
And not be the first.
Joy has gone the way it came.
That is nothing new;
I could get along the same —
Many people do.
Dig for me the narrow bed,
Now I am bereft.
All my pretty hates are dead,
And what have I left?
-Dorothy Parker
Jane steepled her fingers over the keyboard. Was she really going to write this?
Dear Sean,
I am writing because I want your permission to disclose-
No. She looked up from the computer and let the shimmering afterimage of the screen fade. She tried to sketch the moment in her mind, although her life was far too dull to illustrate.
She’d show herself from above, so the reader would see the laptop over her, warming her. She would also have to show how drawn her face was. Not that it ever was an especially perky face, but lately she hadn’t been sleeping more than four or five hours per night, and was old enough to show it.
She settled deeper into the chaise lounge, grinding her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray on the floor. She was sitting, as she did for vacant hours every day, in the only room she ever really used in her second home in Scottsdale. If she went to the balcony, she could see Alice Cooper’s mansion. If she didn’t have writers’ block, that would be a detail to include. She was too serious; she needed to notice lighter things that readers enjoy, as her editor often reminded her.
