Self picnic: A writing exercise

Here's a short story I wrote in 2022, inspired by the "dirty realism" literary movement in North America during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I had just read Rock Springs by Richard Ford.

    Michelle packed her bag single-mindedly. Her only goal was to get out of the house as soon as possible. In her bag was a roll of kimbap, a granola bar, and a bottle of tea. She stood in the doorway for a moment on her way out.

    Should I pack more?

    She shut and locked the door before heading out.

    I won't be out long. I just need to get out for a bit.

    At the end of the driveway, she looked back at her house. It was completely dim. All the neighbours’ houses were dim as well. She hadn’t really spoken with any of the neighbours in years; they may as well have been ghosts.

    At the intersection, the fluorescent lights from the fast-food joints and gas stations frosted the night sky.

    When the light changed, Michelle crossed the street. She was the only pedestrian. She felt like a spectacle for the cars as their headlights glared into her.

    Michelle continued forward. The city lights dimmed. She walked until the lights had given way to near pitch blackness, save for the clinical white of the street lamps. She eyed a dilapidated picnic table underneath a maple tree. A good place to eat. She sat and unpacked her bag.

    Michelle chewed on her kimbap. She had spent hours preparing it, according to how her friend taught her to make it some years prior—lightly fried spam, a fried egg, and danmuji wrapped up in a blanket of seaweed paper. She didn’t talk to that friend much these days. Their lives had diverged and they couldn’t understand each other anymore. She wondered if that could happen with her current friends. It seemed easy; everyone had their own lives already.

    Everyone was a set of parallel lines.

    I’ve been a little callous too, haven’t I? she thought. Maybe it’s me.

    Michelle took a sip of oolong from her water bottle. It tasted like dirty water.

    A car passed by.

    Maybe it’d be convenient to learn how to drive.

    Michelle had walked to this park hundreds of times, but the routine was becoming old. Walking usually helped unravel the knots in her mind, but recently, each unraveling felt like dying. Michelle traced the bottom of her water bottle over the scribbles on the table. They were illegible and smudged.

    Fuck, man.

    Michelle ate the last piece of kimbap and pushed the container back into her bag. She rested her arms on the table, careful to avoid the jagged edges. She stared into the wood and waited. She thought she’d made a lot of progress recently. As she stared into the wood, she became unsure if that was so true. Same old place, same old dark—illuminated only by a cold street light nearby.

    A light breeze rustled the leaves of the maple tree. It was nice to get a breeze during these stagnant summer nights. With autumn’s arrival, the breeze would turn to frigid gusts. Then winter would come, melt into spring, and boil into another summer.

    Michelle couldn’t remember what she had done last summer. Did she cry at a fireworks display?