Another Unedited Twenty Minute Shotgun Flash Fiction piece

Perhaps when my oldest brother claims I cannot get my facts straight, he is right.  When I attempt to tell someone about an event of the past, I seem to take the simple textbook account and soak it with thick water color paint, punch decorative holes into the canvas, glue flowers and found objects to the piece, stamp truths into putty, stretch them into funny shapes and tack it all up on the wall so I can splash the entire event with glitter.  And after I nod my head with satisfaction and announce I am finished, my brother looks me square in the eyes and exclaims, “What the hell was that?”

Yeah, that’s how I tell stories, and I think I am telling the truth, I expect all of the listeners to agree and chime in, adding their own snippet of hair into the weaving of the rug, or poke their dried rose through the foam.  I want other hands to help me plaster my round bumpy paper mache figure, dunk it in coffee, roll it in enamel, stitch it with floss and patch it with moss.  I find it adds character to the story, truly brings the listeners into the experience, the senses, understanding the texture of the moment.  

I can take a childhood memory and roll it up in warm soft dough, swirl it with cinnamon, honey, and butter, bake it in a clay oven, and tear the steamy loaf into pieces to dip into gravy or mint tea with tiny sunshine reflections dancing in my porcelain cup, yet maybe it was Corelle and instant coffee on a rainy stormy icky day with eyeball stew on the stove and Mom was microwaving chicken feet for crunchy snacks.

I will ride a story about someone else into the gravel like a drunk cowboy on a broken horse.  Granted, I may subject the back of the sweaty cowboy neck to a deadly spider bite, and the horses knees will ooze milky white goo before buckling into the hot sand or the pitch black dirt, and then I’d sprinkle salty tears and rainbows across the entire picture, and this may have never happened at all, but I would have thought most assuredly that Jed ran that horse clear to the ground, the gravel, the asphalt, and both the horse and the cowboy ended up in the hospital for weeks.

An yes, its OK to ask, “WHAT?!”

I guess, if I were my oldest brother, knowing full well how certain events factually unravelled, these flamboyant anecdotes would feel like a waste of time and carbon dioxide.  

But I cant help my imagination.