Thursday, August 2, 2012

Mull (An Absence)

I recently discovered Alan Bigelow's amazing digital literature website webyarns.  One of the many excellent pieces on that site is called Moby Dick, which drew my attention because of my friend John Minichillo's excellent novel The Snow Whale.  So I dove in.  First, this piece presents you with a number of "classic" literary novels which are summarized in four sentences.  Then it allows you to write your own.  The parameters: four sentences, 800 characters.  The gauntlet had been thrown down.  I went for it.  Here's the result:


Mull (An Absence)


Mull liked to mull so he mulled

day in, day out 

answer in the bottom of an empty glass: mull 

fly on the screen: mull.


Mull met an unexpected girl

fell out of mull and into love 

what he didn't know: the girl

loved to mull, not Mull.


Mull lost the girl to a man who mulled

and when he asked her to think it over

she said, "What's to think about?"


Now Mull had to mull so he mulled

day in, day out.