She meets me in the hall. I can see my father in the living room and I hear the news. She stands akimbo, viciously squeezing her own hipbones with maliciously long nails, immaculately painted and shaped.

          “You look like a boy,” she spits.

          “I don’t care.”

          “Are you a lesbian?” Her eyes narrow suspiciously. I bet she’d like that. It would look good for her to have a gay daughter she could mention to her friends.

          “No,” I say. From his chair in the corner, my father yells that I look like one. I ignore him. He doesn’t turn around again. My mother continues, telling me everyone will think I’m strange or unbalanced, on drugs or God forbid a lesbian. But I know she likes that idea. I can practically see her running it over in her head. She can whine to a horrified Mrs. Blount about it, brag to her liberal friends about it. I bet they’ll be jealous. I know they will. God. And she’ll never know why I really did it. She’ll never even want to know. 

          A lesbian. Dear God. Where does she come up with this &#@^? Her clients tell her about all of their drama – and everyone else’s. She picked it up from one of them.

          She calls me ungrateful, bulges her eyes, throws her hands in the air, and purses her lips. She asks if I’m happy. I say I am. She tells me to shut up. I tell her I am going out, and I leave. My father is still watching television when I close the door.

Author guidance for This story

Another piece from creative writing micro/flash fiction class.

The Assignment:
- Write a page only only dialogue, beginning with the point at which the parents who own the salon see the child who cut of his/her hair because the parents "love their salon more than" him/her.
- Choose 4 lines - and only 4 - of dialogue to use in the entire piece.
- Set up an opening, a conflict, and an end/conclusion (3-part story, beginning/middle/end format)

updated Jan 20 '11 by Lyre