Imperfect calm

A piece of short fiction, written based upon this morning's prompt and submitted to 1001 nights cast, "a durational performance by Barbara Campbell."

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Jake's worries about how to escape were relieved when Virginia arrived home in a state of acute distress over some disturbance in the village that afternoon, something about the new family. She had spent the afternoon replaying it over back fences with her friends and was in a fine state when she returned. He could never bear to listen to her bitter monologues. They reminded him of his own private transgressions against the village order. It was his habit to leave the house and let her settle back to the mood of relentless calm she preferred to show the world. Virginia's secret filled the whole house, while his was bundled quietly under floorboards or at the back of drawers. He had left a letter with money, keys and necessary documents in a place where she would find them, but not until the following day.

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My story chosen

I just received an email from Barbara Campbell. She chose my submission of "Imperfect calm" to read today. The webcast occurs at 3:51 EDT. Go to the http://1001.net.au/ and click "About" then "Technical" to see whether you can view it.

The webcast

I nearly missed the webcast because a thunderstorm cut power at 3:45, six minutes before air time. I sat cursing as this sluggish computer rebooted, hitting cancel when the ScanDisk dialogue appeared. Norton Antivirus took forever to load. Okay, a minute, which seemed forever. I reached the website with two minutes to spare. Lightning flashed around throughout the story, but never interrupted me again.

It was amazing to hear someone I've never met read my work live from Paris. I feel all squiggly. The audio was marginal, and with Barbara Campbell's moderate Australian accent I might not have understood it if I didn't know the words. Maybe it's just my computer. Did anyone else see it?

I hope some of my writer friends will consider submitting. This was only day 24; 1,077 to go. A hint: you're supposed to pick a story thread from the previous day or another episode. She appreciated that I used more than one thread: Virginia's character and the village setting from yesterday's story, and the hanging theme from "everyone can dance".

She invited me to write again, and I will. Thanks to grandiva1968 for pointing out this project.

Now back to Waterspout 3, in progress.