The Fabric

How is this possible? You’re telling me, I can’t sit on the grass, collar popped and comfortably breathe in the fresh air? You’re telling me the polo match is canceled? What about the vineyard itself? Is it, too, closed to the public?

And what is “public” anyway? Children in stained shorts? Walmart? What about the private sector? What about the natural, organic spread of pure material? 100% wool vests? Unmixed cotton? You’re telling me we’re no longer invited?

I demand a refund. I wasn’t made to sit, holed up in some closet, only to wither away from society. The public pool may be closed, but my family owns a house on the lake. No, not the lake you’re thinking about. The lake. I’ve been going for years.

You can’t tell me to close up shop. I live in Tyson’s Corner. I was born for a high end lifestyle and I won’t tolerate quitters. You think you can tell me what to do? Who’s your boss? I want to speak to the manager.

The Platform

 

Viral Service Briefing

Platform Site: MyHome

Tag Line: Where going viral is fun again!

 

Brand History: We, at MyHome, started off as a small site mainly used by shut-ins. By providing moment-to-moment, live analysis of Car Talk and People’s Pharmacy, a healthy community was born for folks interested in learning the social world of the wide web.

While other social media platforms emerged with their own messaging software, we stuck to classic chatroom communication for minimalist information such as  A/S/L. Gradually, as an increasing amount of users divulged more information, they grew bored with the same advertisements targeted specifically for them. At MyHome, nobody knows what kind of paid content they might see.

Demographics: MyHome is currently designed for those who are stuck indoors. Whether self-quarantined or living without a car in an assisted living or hospital facility, social distancing does not require isolation. Those who particularly enjoy MyHome are roughly 50-75 years old with limited cooking ability. Instead, they prefer to upload blurry, digital pictures of home-made, boxed brownies and post them for friends to see. These friends then re-post the homemade brownies, assuming others won’t know it’s somebody else’s photograph. Once the homemade brownie photo has been shared multiple times, another cooking success must be documented. This information, while somewhat misleading, will inform everyone that everyone is baking.

Our Sponsors: Sponsors include products that, while not technically relevant, still exist. Duracell, SanDisk, KikWear and Sharper Image are just some of the important brands we find crucial to our development.

Quarterly Goals: MyHome does not strive for large economic growth. Instead, MyHome is a process that explores the inner depth of communication through online existence. Without a physical presence, we feel MyHome can break down the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction in an effort to build the ultimate viral performance. For this quarter, MyHome nurtures the motivation of many would-be bakers and cat-owners to upload the most generic photos possible so that anybody could be responsible for their content.

Emergency, Get-Out Plan: Should our platform cause any political, social, financial or ethical complications within an online or physical reality, we are fully able to infect MyHome with a mutated virus. In the event of a pandemic, all social-distanced socializing can be heard over People’s Pharmacy.

 

The Prayer Flag

 

I have a confession to make. I heard everything you were saying that night on the porch. In the alley. On the beach.

I hear them all. All the time. I hear them even when you’re fine.

Somebody wants a boyfriend for the 8th grade dinner dance. Someone wants a raise. I know the man who cheated on his wife and I know his remorseful ways.

I heard the child in the bathroom stall, pleading the school would fall down

and I heard the teacher in the other room, wishing they’d all drown.

I have to pick wisely, I keep telling you all. At the right time for the right cause, I answer the right call.

Like the woman in the hospital who really might have died

or when a man was almost jailed because of someone else’s lie.

But I have to tell you everything because without it I won’t make sense.

I lost my ears in a city park. The world became too tense.

 

The Gum(by)

 

Interview Transcript with Gumby

 

​ME:  Welcome to National Private Reactions.  This is your host, Rebecca, filling in for our chief editor.  He is on leave until further action is denied.   Joining us today is a very special television star from the 1950s: Gumby.

Gumby, it’s great to have you on the show with us this morning, can you tell us a little about your life as a TV star?

GUMBY:  I’d be happy to, Rebecca.  My story is one I’ve wanted to tell for a long time.

I was very satisfied when I began acting in the fifties.  I always wanted people to know my name. When I saw a chance for success, I ran with it.  I was introduced to some larger-than-life people in the business.  They molded me and many other characters into household names.  They also fed me very well.

ME: Food is definitely the spice of life for someone who’s a little on the bland side.  I understand you raised questions about your ‘boring’ appearance during the third season?

GUMBY:  I did, yes. I wanted a more Bohemian look, but the producer wasn’t hip to it. It was a different time back then.  Pokey was getting all the attention and I was starting to get depressed, you know?

ME: Yes.

GUMBY: It’s embarrassing at a certain point in your career to look over at your pony and see the girls going wild.  I never had any girls.  I’d get home, kick my feet off, and go to bed by 9.

ME: That must have been very difficult for you.  Pokey had a bit of a reputation, didn’t he?

GUMBY: Well, yes.  At the time I thought he was just having fun, but now I look back and see that maybe things weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

ME: How so?

GUMBY: He wasn’t very nice to those women.  Sometimes he’d make comments about their body or their size.  But then again, he did it to everyone, so who’s to say?

ME: Did he do it to you?

GUMBY: I guess if I really think about it, my eating disorder started around the time he began teasing me about my body type.

ME:  Is that why you eventually quit television?

GUMBY:  No. I ended up getting help for it, but not before I swallowed multiple sets.  I couldn’t stop.  It got to the point where I’d come into work and start angling for the couch on stage.  I was afraid they’d fire me when the cameras started missing.  It was hard.

ME:  Eating disorders aside, why did you quit show business, Gumby?

GUMBY:  It’s just a dirty business.  Too much attention to appearance.   Too many hours out of my life.  Too many Blockheads.

ME:  Thank you so much, for taking the time to be with us today, Gumby.  We’d love to have you back for our future segment titled: Those That Stick.

That’s all the time we have for today and please stay tuned for: Pondering Quietly.

 

Published:

https://www.scarletleafreview.com/short-stories9/rebecca-lee-interview-transcript-with-gumby

 

 

 

Book Release

Dear Readers,

Some of you have been asking when and where you can buy my book.  According to my publisher, the print version will be released later this month.  I will keep you updated.

The book, Object Relations, will feature many of the stories from this blog.  Illustrations are done by Petra Wagner and the photographer is Tom Haynes.

For additional information, please feel free to email me directly at: RebeccaColesLee@gmail.com

Gum

Well, gum, here you are again.

I know.

How do you always get stuck in these situations?

I don’t know.

You think you would learn.  Last time it was the boy with wolf teeth.  Before that, just dentures.

You think I’d learn.

But you don’t.  You never learn.

Maybe we should continue to talk about it and I will remember next time.

But that’s what we did last time.

I know. I’m not as slick as I’d hoped.

The Origami Bird

The Origami Bird

There once was a bird who lived inside a paper house. The walls were so thin that he could hear everything from the other side. Afraid to make a sound, he sat by himself, stiff in an armchair.

On the days that he would fly from his window into the deep blue sky, he could not be there fully. Instead his mind was trapped inside the origami house, wondering what his neighbors were doing.

He wondered if they would be fighting about who would do the dishes. He wondered if he could smell their worm casserole through the walls. He wondered if he could hear them laughing and talking with friends late at night.

So consumed was he by these neighbors that he forgot where he was going. He forgot about the sky and its magical feeling of infinity. He forgot about his hunger for worms and mice. Instead, he stayed inside and listened to the lives around him.

His neighbors had children together and raised them to be strong. They had birthdays and wedding celebrations and dinners with guests. His neighbors would sometimes listen to loud music or shriek over the phone. There never seemed to be an end to their stories of excitement.

One day, when the neighbors were unusually quiet, the bird got an itch to find an adventure of his own.  When he got up to go to the window there was a sharpness in his side. He lifted his wing, but could no longer remember how to fly.  He hoped for the sky.  He hoped for the best. But when he looked down, his wings had turned to paper.

 

News:

The Fresca

 

There once was a can of Fresca so small and tinny that he posed no threat to the other sodas. Other carbonated drinks sat fat in bottles, stretched to the neck with bubbles made of sugar. They were the first to go.

“Why am I never picked?” Fresca wondered.

Day after day, Fresca sat all by himself next to a few cans of lemon fizz. No one wanted the lemon fizz either, but who could blame them? Fresca had potential. Lemon fizz didn’t.

The Coke bottles disappeared first. Their shiny red plastic brand names glittered in the hands of strangers too eager to wait for the check out line. They popped off their tops and immediately drank from the bottle. Patience was no match for thirst.

 

But then something happened. At the end of the month, when the vendor hadn’t returned, the freezer was left empty. All of the plastic bottles were gone. The greedy children and absent-minded adults had plucked each and every coke, sprite, and root beer off the shelves. There was nothing left but Fresca.

At first the customers stared in horror at the emptiness that was once so full. A little boy with a Red Sox cap raced over to the freezer and eagerly reached for a bottle. His hand clumsily felt the first shelf and then the second. He began to cry.

His mother looked around the grocery store. A line was forming behind her.

“Shut up, Billy,” she whispered.

Billy’s tears began to flow.

“If you don’t shut up by the time I count to three, I’m going to lock you in your room for a week.”

Billy continued to sob, reaching his small hand into the freezer again and again. Still, there was no coke.

The mother, shoving Billy aside, reached for a glass shelf below the freezer and yanked out a can of Fresca.

“Look,” she hissed. “It’s fine.”

 

Fresca was overjoyed with his new lot in life. He watched the scenery glide by in Billy’s Mom’s station wagon. He loved the soft seat cushion that was good to his can. At last, Fresca was appreciated.

He sat in their fridge for a few days, wondering when he would be chosen. “It’s going to be a beautiful day, when they realize what I have inside me,” Fresca boasted to a carton of eggs.

“They won’t ever go back to those bottles again,” Fresca explained to the creamer.

 

Late one night when everyone had gone to bed, Fresca heard Billy’s mom bumble into the kitchen.

She opened the door, rummaged through the top shelf, and pulled out the Fresca.

“This is going to be the start of dreams made true,” Fresca said, winking at the frozen waffles.

And then he was devoured.

 

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/02/17/maine-asks-feds-to-allow-ban-on-food-stamps-for-candy-soda

The Tooth

Was she the good one? Or was she the bad one?

 

I stared at the fairy with the floppy head and wondered just how hard Merribelle, the real tooth fairy, had hit her. Floppy Fairy had one eye closed, as if sewn in place with a purposeful vengeance. It was the wink of a cruel joke.

Even if she wasn’t dead, there was no way she could practice her tooth ferrying. I doubted her ability to fly. One wing was slightly crooked and sticking out at odd angles.

She was probably a good fairy. The kind who was never young and always kind. She probably gave children whole dollar bills instead of the dimes Merribelle doled out. Her voice was probably as small as a cotton ball, soft and beautiful forever.

It was her rich and rewarding happiness that Merribelle hated most. The way she always seemed to feel better than anyone had a right to feel. This was the sensation Merribelle tried to steal when she knocked the other fairy to her demise.

But because Merribelle won, because she became the tooth fairy, her generosity was never considered cheap. Dimes are a fortune when dollars are dreams. Like all winners of a game, Merribelle became the fair, the just, the champion.

Merribelle was the good one.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20170111_history_is_written_by_winners_can_internet_archive_change_that/

The Answering Machine

“Hey, you got me, but you didn’t really get me. Leave a message at the beep.”

You can get back home through the telephone wires. From city to suburb, follow the skinny black lines until your voice is my voice and our voice is here.

 

“Hey, you got me, but you didn’t really get me. Leave a message at the beep.”

Pick up. Where do you live now? Do you like your job? Who are you with?

Every now and again, your machine is full. Too many voices trying to get in. They push and they shove, but they stand just to wait.

I know, you’ll call me when you can.

 

“Hey, you got me, but you didn’t really get me. Leave a message at the beep.”

Do power lines still map the way if only cell phones are used? Invisible pathways going in a million different directions scatter the world apart.

Misplaced conversations. Lost words looking for a sentence.

Face focused on the front of the phone.

 

“This number is no longer in service.”

 

 

 

 

Redesigning Voice Mail :  The UX of the Missed Call