Tuesday, February 8, 2011

TRAINS, RABBITS, WATERMELON SEEDS



A friend went out of my door the other day saying “What’s a girl to do?”  I had just said something like how happy she seemed despite a few downturns in her fortunes lately. We both laughed.  Neither of us are girls and our realities are, for the moment, out of our hands.  No doing by either of us for a while.  Just being done to, not that great a feeling, actually.

Then I started thinking about the question. Who asked it the first time, before it popped out of my friend’s mouth like a watermelon seed?

I had just done a Google search on dog diarrhea and knew if that very special subject was included in the lexicon of Google knowledge, so might the phrase, “What’s a girl to do?”

It is.  It appears that the question has nothing to do with two older females  moaning about finances and query rejections. It concerns rejection of a different ilk.  A young girl, who is at best thirteen, sings  a song as she rides a bike in the dark and rabbits (big ones) run behind her. She doesn’t love her lover anymore. How will she tell him?

Perhaps I’m missing something. My speakers only whisper at me when I listen to YouTube. So I find the lyrics. Maybe I will learn a little more about what I am to do, or at least get inspired for the short story I am thinking of entering in a local contest.

“When you love so long/ That the thrill is gone/ And your kisses at night/ Are replaced with tears/ And when your dreams are on a train to train wreck town/ Then I ask you now, what’s a girl to do?” (Bat for Lashes, 2007)

Well, I’d advise her to get off the train. Quick.

Shit, did I really say that?  I mean, this girl and the rabbits are not really singing about love, are they?  What do rabbits know about love? They’re singing about failing dreams, about deflated hopes, loss of self esteem in those ridiculous costumes.  Maybe about rejection slips.

Am I advising myself get off my train before I wreck?  To quit while I’m still alive?

As I type this,  a “ding” sounds.  I have an email.  I have two more agents and a publisher to hear from. .  I click on the email symbol. I’m not quite ready to get off the train


Jo Barney Writes
www.jobarneywrites.com