'While Reading My Story about a Girl Fishing with Her Father to My Own Father, He Drums His Fingers' by Debra A. Daniel

“Put a gun in it,” he says. He exhales a cigarette breath even though he hasn’t smoked in months.

“It’s not that kind of story,” I say. “It’s about family connection.”

“Without a gun, you won’t get a movie deal,” he says.

“When you put a gun in a story, someone gets hurt or dies.” I reach for his hand to stop his galloping fingers.

I look into his eyes. Most of him is still there. The opinionated part, at least. He gives me his that’s-the-way-it-is look.

“If the story’s up to snuff, someone has to die,” he says. “It makes readers care.” Our hands let go of each other.

“My stories aren’t about death,” I say.

“Yes, they are. What happens to the fish?”

I sigh. My hands hold each other. 

“Don’t you care about them?” he says.

“I do,” I say. “I’ll revise it so they catch and release.”

Now his fingers on both hands drum. “Cop out,” he says.

I take a deep breath. “It isn’t about fish. It’s supposed to show the father and daughter casting out and reeling each other back. It’s a metaphor for holding onto something elusive.”

“Malarkey,” he says. “Add a gun.”

I clasp my hands as if prayer could help. “No gun,” I say. “If it’s there certain things will happen.” I give him my own that’s-the-way-it-is look.

He raises both hands. “If you put a fish in the story, nobody has to catch it. If you put in a cigarette, nobody has to smoke,” he says. “You’re the writer. Fix it so nobody uses the gun.”

My father—sitting in a wheelchair, stale breath, his fingers drumming—leans toward me. “You can still control your story,” he says. I nod and drum along with him.

---

Debra A.Daniel has published two novellas-in-flash, A Family of Great Falls and The Roster (AdHoc Fiction), Woman Commits Suicide in Dishwasher (novel), and two poetry chapbooks, The Downward Turn of August and As Is. She’s a Pushcart and Best Short Fictions nominee. She won The Los Angeles Review short fiction prize, received the SC Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship, the Guy Owen Poetry Prize, and awards from the Poetry Society of SC. Work has been longlisted and shortlisted in many contests and has appeared in: Snow Crow, Legerdemain, LA Review, Smokelong, Kakalak, Inkwell, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River, and others.