Magical Realism 4/5/01

There was something wrong with the house. The wind was pushing a tree against the outside north wall of the room. Thumping, thumping in an always quiet house. Below Jason and Amma, in the kitchen, there was creaking. It sounded as if every cabinet and drawer was opening and closing on its own. Creaking, clacking in an always quiet house. Something scurried across the attic above them. A mouse, a rat, possibly a chipmunk. Something alive that wasn’t there the night before. Scurrying, scurrying in an always quiet house.

Amma groaned and rolled over. Jason got out of the bed and stomped his foot on the floor. “SHUT UP!” he yelled. The house silenced itself. No more scurrying, no more creaking, and no more thumping. Jason crawled back into the bed. He snuggled up next to Amma. Something isn’t right, Amma thought as Jason’s arms slid around her.

“Something isn’t right,” Amma said. Jason cocked his head.

“What’s not right?” Jason asked.

“Something.”

“The house is quiet now. There’s nothing wrong.”

“But something isn’t right.”

Jason grunts and pushes himself against Amma, begging her for warmth and affection. He closes his eyes and relaxes. Something isn’t right he realizes. His eyes snap open. “Brian.”

“What?” Amma murmurs.

“Brian didn’t wake up when I yelled. Something isn’t right.” Jason sat straight up in bed. Amma rolled over and snapped on the lamp next to her head. They fly out of bed at the same time.
Amma gets to the crib first because the crib is by her side of the bed.

Brian is lying peacefully on his bed. Amma stares at him. Jason stumbles over and stares at him. His fists are clenched. His chest is not moving slowly up and down. Amma and Jason hold their own breath in order to hear the breaths that aren’t coming out of Brian’s small mouth and nose.

“Call 911,” Jason says. But Amma is frozen. She grips the side of the crib so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “CALL 911!” Jason yells, he himself frozen. Tears begin to flow down Amma’s face. Her cheeks become red apples, shiny from the wetness of the tears. Jason hears her whimper and he takes a dive for the phone where he dials the three numbers that mean help.

Oh, this story. Oh, this story. I don’t even know where to begin. It was part of my first novel which was written in parts all over my notebooks. It’s something I always return to because I do love it so much. I’m sure that you noticed that the name of the woman is the same name as the character from my last post. They are not the same person. Sometimes I just get really attached to names.

I must tell you that I was surprised to find this part of the novel in my third notebook. I don’t like the third notebook very much because it reflects a very awkward period in my life. I like this part of the story. I like what I did with it.

This [unfinished] novel is incredible to me because I was so young when I started working on it but it was so well-defined. I knew the characters and I knew what they wanted. The main character in this story is not Amma or Jason. It is the house. I was trying to bring to life something that is normally not a living being. I’m sure that it has been done before, especially with houses. Ander Monson said in one of his beautiful tweets “A family, often itself contained by a home, is a mechanism for containing: secrets, pain, stories, beauty, the seeds of its own undoing.” I think, in the case of this story, I wanted to make a home that, not only contained a family, but reflected it as well.

It was my first attempt at magical realism. I think it might have also been my last. Magical realism is a tough thing to create and to put into a story for the same reason that I think stories that are written in genres such as Science Fiction and Fantasy are tough to write well. I don’t write Science Fiction and Fantasy because it too often relies on plot twists instead of character arcs. In magical realism you have to create a story in which the characters are believable. Despite what is going on around them and however crazy it may seem the characters have to behave in a way that any normal person would behave. They have to react correctly. It’s tough.

I remember submitting a draft of the beginning of this story my freshman year of college in my first ever creative writing course and I remember how my professor reacted when we read it in workshop. He opened the workshop by saying that I had created something really wonderful and that we have to take into account when reading magical realism that, so often, it is something that is used by writers who are describing characters who don’t live in the most ideal of situations. He asked us to consider whether or not we thought that magical realism worked within the realm of suburbia. He thought that it did. His comments made me feel both embarrassed and proud.

I am fairly proud of this little bit of writing in a notebook that I find difficult to read.