Word Games
written by: LA Carson
“Impressive!”
“Awesome!”
Having collected her daily dose of digital affirmation from Wordle and Wordscapes, Susan scoots back from solitary confinement at her cluttered kitchen counter. Word games constitute her morning routine and provide the ego-stroke once bestowed by eccentric, high-ticket, marketing clients. A whiz with words, she wrestles with defining post-career identity.
She brushes crumbs from her plate into the overflowing waste basket, struggling to remember what day of the week it is so she doesn’t miss trash pick-up. Yawning, she shakes her disheveled head, grateful to be free from the shrill demands of a wake-up alarm but cursed by the internal alarm that refuses to allow her to sleep past 5:30am. As she piles breakfast dishes onto the crusty heap already accumulated in the sink, the doorbell rings.
Susan scurries to swing open the front door, but Steve, the UPS delivery guy, who she now knows on a first name basis, is already back in his truck, taking with him her only shot at human interaction for the day. She scoops up consolation with both arms, retrieving the day’s assortment of Amazon boxes and savoring a temporary adrenaline rush similar to a kid’s on Christmas morning. She deposits the haul on top of the other unopened stockpiles littering the hallway. Catching a foul waft of body odor, emanating from the left armpit of her stained Stevie Nicks t-shirt, she closes the front door, wondering if her sparser shower habits and smelly pits are to blame for Steve’s hasty departure. Relieved of the need to check emails or messages, she slides her cell phone into the pocket of the sweatpants she’s worn for the past three days, then ambles to her bedroom closet.
Pushing aside relics of designer dresses, professional pantsuits and an assortment of neglected Italian leather pumps, she snags the threadbare robe and scruffy slippers that comprise her trending haute couture. Passing her dresser, she affords the briefest glance at the framed kids who never call or visit, then she gasps at an alarming glimpse of her decrepit mother in the bedroom mirror’s reflection.
Pouring her third cup of caffeinated solace into a mug, no longer marred with lipstick stains, she shoves it in the microwave, idly watching seconds tick away, contemplating how she’ll fill hours. Tugging on the window blind, she shutters slivers of the outside world, before plopping her expanding ass into the overstuffed recliner that’s become as familiar as her old, assigned parking spot in the office high rise. Seizing the crossword puzzle magazine and pen from the coffee table, she concentrates on seventeen, down. Ten letters. A word meaning ‘not pertinent; having no value.‘ Susan scrawls without hesitation.
‘Irrelevant.’
- Word Games - July 26, 2024
