July 14--Write about an epiphany--Hermie writhes when she thinks of how trite it sounds. How she was lying in bed that summer morning when everything changed and the voice of the jovial morning TV guy (you know, the bald one) seeped under the door. "Seventy-eight percent of..." At that moment Blaine turned on the hair dryer and drowned out the voice. Seventy-eight percent, she thought. Seventy-eight, seventy-eight echoed through her brain like there was a tunnel between her ears. She got up, pulled on a ratty t-shirt and some saggy butt pants and wandered down the hall for coffee. "Good morning, sleepyhead," Blaine said as she slid behind him to make a pit stop. "Seventy-eight," she said vaguely not sure where it came from. By the time she was almost finished with her first cup of coffee, seventy-eight had taken up residence in her head chorus-lining back and forth, chanting and high-kicking like a bizarre cross between Vanna White and the Rockettes. Hermie read through the paper amazed at how many times seventy-eight appeared on the pages. She ate a bowl of Alpha Bits and noticed how often an upside-down L and a B lined up side by side to make a sort of seventy-eight floating there in the milk. Through her shower the words conga-ed through her mind sending their rhythm to her hips. She seventy-eighted herself out the door to her car, her toes tapping the beat in her shoes. The radio announcer blended right into the refrain, "Seventy-eight year old philanthropist Severn Eightenhowell passed away at his home at 7887 Seventy-eighth Avenue last night. Mister Eightenhowell used his...
And that's as far as I got before realizing that I have no idea whatsoever where this came from and even less where it's going and why. But I'm happy it came.
--Barbara
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