Memorial Day

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After the ceremony we went out for dim sum and argued about our apartment. When our Lyft driver came he said we were his first partiers of the night. We told him we were going to my mom’s house. He was listening to a podcast about Memorial Day. The host spoke in low, grave tones, drawing out his cadence to convey respect. Periodically the driver would repeat certain key phrases to himself in a low murmur, as if committing them to memory. At regular intervals the podcast volume ducked for Siri to break in dictating which turn the driver should take.

When we remember what we have, the host began.

In half a mile, turn right onto 30th, interrupted Siri.

What we have, the driver echoed, as if reminding the host where he had left off.

So on this particular Memorial Day, the host continued, oblivious to his interruption.

In a quarter mile, turn right onto 30th, interrupted Siri.

Memorial Day, the driver reminded us.

The iconic photo, the host continued.

Turn right onto 30th, interrupted Siri.

The soldiers returning home from Vietnam, the host continued.

Vietnam, the driver repeated in a tone of deepest reverence.

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One response to “Memorial Day”

  1. He Said She Said – Christian Molenaar

    […] Ten repetitions of the same tag in only nine sentences, and the whole page contains sixteen. There are another twelve instances on the preceding page and six more on the following. Even for Bernhard, though, sixteen appearances of the same tag is an outlier; this particular passage appears at the end of the novel as the narrator closes in on Roithamer’s titular, inevitable “correction,” i.e. his suicide. The increasing frequency of tags draws in the reader by their repetition, implicating the audience in the narrator’s obsessive, ritualistic behavior; their place in each sentence is a mooring providing reader and narrator their lone anchor from tumbling into the abyss, and the closer looms the edge the more frequently they must be called upon to keep from falling. Tic or technique, it’s a strategy I’ve lifted before in my own writing. […]

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Thought:

“

There was a game they liked to play when they were midway in life’s journey, but still healthy, still lustful and keen.

It was: Who could get you to cry in the fewest words?

Of course, some of the best effects were made when everyone was drunk.

He remembered this girl had a good one once.

The last whale swam deeper…

But one of the best was a line from Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

You mean, I’m being left behind?

He couldn’t remember many others. They hadn’t played the game in years.

“

Joy Williams | “Whale”

Christian Molenaar