The Isolation Journals - Day 15

Today's prompt comes from writer Kiese Laymon, and it was a total blast.  It was a welcome shift towards lightness after yesterday's topic drew me a little too close to the brink of feeling actual feelings.

And now, for something completely different

Prompt:  What’s the funniest thing that happened to you last year? Write a paragraph from the point of view of an inanimate object that bore witness to it. Could be your hat. Could be your wedding ring, a streetlamp or the plant in the corner of the bar. Use as much sensory/sensual language as possible to describe the memory from that object’s perspective.

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She chose me that day.  The woman reached into the drawer, shrugged, and plucked me out.  Fastened my clasp, spun me around, hoisted the girls into my waiting, supportive cups.  Covered me up with a soft, chambray button-down.  I don't mind that part, I get it, but still, I'm always kept in the dark.  Sometimes I yearn to breathe free.

For a while, I could only guess where the woman had taken us.  It was quiet, and she kept walking a few paces and pausing, strolling, pausing.  There must be something to see out there.  Something compelling to demand her sustained attention. 

I whispered to the chambray.  Psst.  Hey.  You feel how the strap on her purse is tugging your top button open?  Let it goooo, sister.

The woman twisted her torso to pluck her phone from her back pocket.  Eureka!  Free at last.  I drank in our surroundings.  At last, the silence and pacing made sense.  An art museum?  Wonderful.  

On the wall hanging before me was a print from Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother series.  I could see so much of myself in woman in the photograph.  She appeared gray and haggard.  I was gray and haggard.  Her boob was out.  My boob was out...

Just then, a museum guard sidled over to us and whispered to the woman, "Riveting, isn't it?"


[This retelling from the bra's perspective is based on the post, Hoe Culture, from March 2019]