the beautiful worst

Fabulist Fiction Inspiration

A Sneak Peek at My Novel-In-Progress:

Perhaps, if Mira knew this would be the last time she’d see her father, she would have put aside her petty teenage angst to look out the front passenger window and etch this last memory into her mind: his steady gait as he pulled a rolling suitcase filled with cleaning supplies. Maybe she would have pulled him away from the red front door. Or maybe she would have tried to see who was opening it on the other side. 

Instead: Mira sunk into the passenger seat. She looked up at the fluffy clouds in the blue sky. She pushed the dashboard vents with her sneakered toe. The cold a.c. breezed across her face. 

This was life. 

Life was the road. Life was rest stops and a cooler with a jar of smooth peanut butter and wheat bread, two canteens—one of coffee, one of juice. It was two suitcases in the trunk with a carton of industrial cleanser for home use, which Samuel sold door-to-door.

Mira waited in the car while her father stepped into living rooms to show prospective customers the effectiveness of his products. He demonstrated how one’s life could change with this simple solution. How they could keep a clean house, keep whites whiter, carpets fresher, couches odor-free. How, with this newfound freedom, they could spend more time with family or entertaining friends. They could step into the lives they always wanted to live, become the version of themselves they always wanted to be. 

Mira and her father did not have their own home that required tending, no chores to obstruct their dreams. They stayed in towns for such a short time they mostly lived in motels with names like broken promises, Oasis Inn and Bright Morning Resort. Mira watched the world from balconies overlooking bean-shaped pools with turquoise water and rusty, sun-bleached furniture. Overnight stops for tired truckers and lonely travellers and families, like them, living somewhere in between. Places people ignored as they coasted across the highway to more important places in their more important lives. 

When she was small, Mira asked her father, “Why can’t we be normal?”

“Who says we aren’t normal?”

“We don’t live like they do on TV.”

“No one lives like they do on TV.”

“Not even the customers?”

“Especially the customers.”

What Mira had yet to learn—what Samuel had prevented her from learning—was when her father stepped into these homes, he was not drinking decaf coffee with housewives, coaxing them into a sale. In his briefcase was a menu of lethal weapons: sharp blades and a blunt club and a silenced revolver. But it was often easiest to complete the job with his quick hands. The cleaning products removed the bloodstains from the couches and carpets. There were solutions used to dissolve bodies in bathtubs.

He emerged from each house, tipping his hat. They’d get back on the road and in not too long people would begin to wonder what happened to their friend, their neighbor, their co-worker. By the time the investigation was in full swing, Samuel and Mira would be on the road. 

Samuel made people disappear, but his most successful disappearing act was him and Mira.

Virtual Enrichment to Spark Inspiration

Your Turn!