Hello. I am an essay. I could have been another short story, another dark flash fiction tale of less than one thousand words, something involving the demise of something, because that’s what happens in the end, everything dies, but it’s the discovery of that demise—to discover it, having it careen straight into your field of vision and demand attention like a spoiled child in a dirty diaper, which is a good description of the dead one. But I don’t want to be another fictional story about that situation because there have been many fictional stories on that subject. I want to be an essay about the time since that demise, how liberating it has been without the dead one and the guilt that accompanies that liberation.
The writing has only been around for four months in this particular decade, and stories have been accepted (not the ones about the dead one) as well as a book because this writing thing has been all-consuming, an all-day endeavor, like an addiction, and the dead one was an addict, so it’s been passed on. It’s the main thing, other than the dog and the husband, and they don’t require much attention because they are both male and males are simple creatures.
There has been so much writing and reading and submitting, not submitting as in a slave submitting to a master, maybe, but submitting to them, and then checking emails, and then checking emails, did I mention checking emails? There will be more NOs than YESs, and that is okay, because NOs aren’t as bad as finding the dead one and touching the dead one and feeling the cold and the rigidity. And in spite of that bastard of a moment there has been enjoyment in doing this writing thing because of the euphoria in such a short span of time and because that heavy, heavy, heavy burden is gone.
But there is guilt, so much guilt in doing what she wants to do instead of doing what she has to do for someone who had no idea of the sacrifices she made throughout her adult life for the dead one’s benefit, so she shouldn’t feel guilty for all that is happening right now… Wait, now I’m a she and she sounds like an asshole and she can’t get her mother’s dead body out of her thoughts—
She doesn’t think she wants to be an essay either.
Laura Shell started writing because her mother told her to. She will be published in Calliope, Chiron Review, WINK, Literally Stories, and will have an anthology of horror stories published in 2024. When she isn’t writing, she watches horror movies with her dog, Groot.