Rosie Today

At the precipice of losing everything, my sweet, loving grandparents. . . 

Christina, my stepsister, leaves me here with her dying dog, Ginsie. My closest confidant and companion is my stepsister.

I am just a girl, and I have developed an attachment to the dog. My big blue eyes well up with tears at the thought of her disappearing from my existence, like an orb belonging to another planet. Ruth is as nimbus as a cloud; as infinite as she is temporary. 

The blue-eyed girl stares at Ruth, guzzling sweet-potatoey kibble directly in front of her. 

What will I do when she disappears? I think to myself.

Ruthie farts quietly but with enough of a subdued toot for the girl to hear the fart. 

People need fantasy; they need an escape. 

I once was a Green Bay Packer. A great big linebacker wearing a navy blue shiny, tight polyester shirt. I am number fourteen. 

I am now a writer who writes so ferociously that I can’t even read. I am blind with rage, though cool as a cucumber. Nonchalant, unhinged, a sprinkle of cringe.

I was born in the 1920s, or I am living there in a parallel universe. I am a filmmaker in the coexisting dream reality. Over there, I was just swallowed by the tower and am getting tossed around in the sheets with an inappropriately aged executive, stories high in the sky. Over there, I signed contracts from the big block of wood and swam with prehistoric manatees, which whistled and grunted from the enormous pool in my backyard. 

I dumped all the belongings of my Dior purse into the pool. A girl named Pippa swam with me to find it all. We were worried that my lipstick would be lifted up through the gutter. 

All of us Keatings are writers; that’s the funny part, because it is an ancient lost family FULL of stories, and now I’m just convinced that all of these stories live in my womb. Getting lost in a book is an extremely lost hobby. Just diving into a swimming pool of words, taking your time to swim there. 

I remove my curly hair from space buns, letting a blonde mane fall. It sits in a curly medium-long bob just below my shoulders, my crown surrounding my frame. 

I kneel and pet the creature’s old, dry nose. There is a slimy green goo dripping from the Frenchie’s smushed-up face. Thick milky tears fall from Ginsie’s eyes, glossed over from cataract. Her nose is rough, rocky sandpaper, and terribly misshapen. The dog grunts like an alien and exhales obtrusively in my face.   

I think of texting my high school quarterback. Hey, you should stop by…Ruth wants to see you. She doesn’t have much more life left. 

She spies on him from the Twelfth Street Cafe. She can see him leaving his mistress’s apartment. 

My stepsister doesn’t like to admit that I am a genius. We never butt heads; we’re always in alignment, but I could never fall for her deceit. Now we keep receipts and budget tightly for living expenses. Combining our fallen lives; there’s tallness in my head, she’s deep in my web, but I’m in her nest.