Roots

Two blades of grass leaned together in the wind.
"I've been working on a memoir."
"I think it's a north wind. Brisk. What kind of memoir?"
"An account of my adolescence."
"A growing pains kind of thing."
"Detailed yet macro. Plenty of digressions about the meadow."
"So a memoir doubling as a niche study."
"I'd call it ambiance. Cultural climate, if you will."
"It gives the piece depth."
"Right. I'm not a narcissist."
"Your inadequacy as subject leaving room for the group."
"I am the prime example. The central text."
"A part of the whole."
"Part for the whole."
"Fiction or non-fiction?"
"The memoir?"
The wind stopped. The blades of grass tilted slowly back to upright positions, stretching toward the high-noon sun, dry and awake.
"Are you fabricating some of it? Heightening the realism for dramatic effect?"
"That's when the meadow comes in. To fill in the gaps of mundane."
"The others, the crabgrass, the dandelions. As related to you. Or otherwise."
"It's a non-fictional work."
It was a lazy, gorgeous afternoon. A lawnmower puttered.
"Are you a fatalist?"
"My writing doesn't shape the way I live. So maybe."
"Your writing is purely observational."
"Outside but in."
"Writing in the first person with a third person's perspective."
"Like an Escher sketch. Or a Mobius strip."
"You leave no other side. No slate for reader opinion."
"They can judge the voice. The story is mine."
The blades of grass were chopped into pieces and scattered like seeds. Unattached and considerably lighter, they skipped across the lawn with the slightest breeze.

Sick

There was a problem with the refrigerator so I called General Electric. They sent a repairman. The patch on his polo read "Kurt" and like his name he didn't say much. I showed him the open fridge and tested the top shelf for coolness, motioning for him to do the same. There were sounds coming from the back of the unit, a series of clicks like nutshells snapping open, then a choppy, strained whirring, then silence for a few seconds before the clicking started again. I was more irritated about the noise than the broken fridge, which only had a diet soda and a few stale heels of French bread in it anyway. The repetition was what got to me. I anticipated every stage of the cooling system's sick lament, reproduced every click and whir in my head until I had to turn on loud music or a porno to drown it out. I was losing sleep.
The repairman put his right ear to the side of the fridge, listening in three different spots. He held up his hand as if to shut me up or order me to hold my horses or maybe both. Then he left.
I put my ear to the one of the spots he'd monitored and heard the same sounds I'd been hearing all week, only amplified and made almost tactile by echoes.
Five minutes later Kurt returned with a dolly and three canvas straps. He unplugged the fridge, stopping the noise, and I felt like an idiot for suffering a week of click-click-whir's without thinking of unplugging the bastard. It took some shifting but the flat edge of the dolly slid fairly easily under the fridge.
"She's gone," said Kurt.
I waited for a more comprehensive diagnosis and got nothing. He hugged the fridge with the straps, tying them tightly to the dolly. Within seconds Kurt was wheeling her out of the kitchen and down the hallway.
"Your warranty's still good," he assured. "We'll bring you a new one tomorrow morning."
From the door, I watched him take the fridge to his truck and wheel it up a ramp he'd set up to the cabin. I thought of running over to ask him what he'd heard that convinced him she was beyond repair. As a buyer I felt I had the right to know. My stomach rumbled.

Instrument

Sitting in her high chair with her hands flat on the table, Amy Edin said "dum dum" and waited. Her father looked up from his November Car and Driver for a second, smiled, and resumed reading. Her mother adjusted the radio. Amy was disappointed. Saying it had brought laughter and celebration just yesterday. She'd been praised, picked up and spun around, Eskimo-kissed, showered with copycat "dum dum"s till her parents were hoarse. Why no more? Did nobody love her?
Amy cried. Father put down his magazine and Mother arrived with sympathy and a bottle. Crying still made the world move. But it wasn't as satisfying.
Mother swept her up and checked her diaper with a quick flick. Amy cried a little longer than usual to savor the stroking and the shaking. She wanted her parents to laugh again. Laughter was better than consolation. It wasn't obligatory.
The bottle. Its familiar chewiness. She gnawed on the rubber nipple, letting the formula dribble down her chin. Mother shifted Amy to her left arm and went back to the radio to fiddle with the dials. Static and the jittery sound of station-shuffling filled the room. No one spoke.