[NEW NONFICTION] Intro to all my Unwritten Novels

Image by Catherine Green

BY LORI GREEN

—

Recently I’ve been hearing this sentence: A baby, loose among the banquet, crawls towards the raspberries. I know it’s grammatically off, but replacing ‘among’ with the antiseptic ‘at’ leaves the picture juiceless. So does keeping ‘among’ but turning ‘banquet’ into a word for its people, such as the archaic ‘banqueters,’ of which the baby is one.

I don’t go to banquets, certainly not ones with guests self-possessed enough to bring a baby and set it free to find its own memories. I can’t think of anything more glamorous, except for a story I read in a fashion magazine when I was a teenager: It’s the late 1950s and a couture-clad woman strolls through Venice with a man she just met. They’ve spent hours along the canals tilting their chins toward the moonlight when she realizes she has to pee.

If she asks to interrupt their wandering, she’ll betray herself as a human being with a body rather than the universal antidote. Even if she does admit this fatal flaw and make it to a restroom, her dress is such that she’d need the help of a good friend and a pair of scissors to get the job done. She cannot will the situation away and her wits are failing by the minute. It’s pressing. In the end, she is saved by her nose, which remembers that Venice already smells like sewage. With a fit of sparkling laughter, she hides the sound of urine sliding down her legs under a gown she will never wear again. For me, its cloth has always been a satin in ominous mauve.

Not being fifteen any longer, I understand the scenario’s corrupt. But still, whenever I remember her ingenuity I’m reminded to get off my ass and actually make something of myself. I’ve told this story to friends and family but I can never translate its effect. No one sees the charm, the danger and innocence. I try to emphasize the lines of her dress and the intensity of her gaze, the city’s postcard perfection and its stench, the Woman Victorious.

When they tell me it’s simply disgusting, I know I have failed again. I wonder if it would play out better on film. The baby, loose among the banquet, crawls towards the raspberries. I will not kill this darling.

—

LORI GREEN studied across genre at the New School’s Riggio Program for Writing and Democracy. Her work has appeared in Silver Needle Press, 12th Street Journal, and Whitevines Review. She lives, writes, and paints with her husband in Northeastern Pennsylvania.