3-Minute Reading

by Louise Yeiser

“They will always think of you as a blond who writes,” my agent warned, “so you may want to reconsider your hair color.” Later that evening, I gave my first public reading. “I was the victim of a violent crime,” I began, and launched into it with my description of the bruises on my cheeks, the blood in the whites of my eyes and the closing of my eyelid, beaten shut; and during a pause, I looked up and saw a room full of eyes staring wide, and not one inch of movement, not even the silver blur of a pin dropping; so I rested in my white space and sipped the silence. The message wasn’t in the chopped-up, glued-together segment I read that evening; the message was me, facing a hundred people, my scars offered up to them in a strong, clear voice with no sign of self-pity. So let them think of me as a blond who writes. It suits me.

6S

Louise Yeiser, whose full catalog is here, has been published in print in Kerlak’s Modern Witches, Wizards and Magic, and Six Sentences, Volume 1. Her work appears online at Tuesday Shorts, Flashquake, and Long Story Short. Her blog is here. She studies creative writing at Carlow University in Pittsburgh and Ireland, and she has dedicated her life to remaining blond.