(This short-short story was just published in the online literary journal Train Flash Fiction. I love writing flash fiction. For one thing, it’s really short! But not as easy as you might think. Trying to write a story in a few lines or under 500 words is sometimes more challenging than having all the pages you need. This one clocks in at 174 words. Link below or read here.)

http://trainlitmag.weebly.com/

The Notebook

She thinks she might be getting dementia. As soon as she thinks this, she writes it down in her notebook, because if she is getting dementia she might not remember she is getting it, and she will have lost this moment of lucidity forever. So her notebook, with its lists and notes, will be critical. It will be her guidepost, her hedge against dementia. That and long walks and her crossword puzzles. Not Sudoku though. She has always hated math and gets irritated at those Sudoku people on trains with their smug whiff of superior intellectualism, although it occurs to her that they might feel the same way about her and her crosswords.

There are some things she would like to forget (her divorce, her cruelty to her ex). And there are things she would like to remember (maybe she could make another list?) But the things she would like most to forget seem to be the very things she can’t.

The mind is a truly screwed-up thing, she thinks. Brilliant. Write that down.