Writer

by Michael Dymmoch

Every writer keeps files with ideas, plot summaries, lines of dialog. Mine are in a folder titled "Great Beginnings." Sometimes, when I access it to add something I don't want to work on but don't want to forget, I reread one of the files. I did that today and discovered something I scribbled in 2009, something I'd forgotten I wrote:

One of those rainy October mornings, with the streets imperfectly reflecting sky and traffic lights, collecting red and yellow leaves along the gutters. I was passing Saks in Highland Park. They had the bronze security gate halfway up, and a young woman was kneeling to clean the smudges off the glass doors. As she paused in her task, she gazed out at the rainy landscape. Her expression seemed to reflect the wet gray sky.


Writer.

I observe my surroundings,
especially the people around me.
I observe myself observing.
It's not unlike the glimpse of absurdity
you get in a fun house,
where a mirror reflects
a smaller reflection of itself
reflecting a smaller reflection of itself
ad infinitum.