Creative Nonfiction - Fall 2017

Experiments in nonfiction

CREATIVE NONFICTION 85

Trying to Conceive

It’s not difficult to imagine a line. First, close your eyes.

Remember when you were a child and noticed every-

thing about the world: the light stretching just so across

the baseball field, the white dog fur on the kitchen

floor, the map-like lines on your mother’s stomach.

It can’t be that hard to see a line.

Open your eyes. Do you see it yet?

Hold it up to the window. To the bedroom lamp.

You’re searching for light. Take it outside. Squint harder.

Te l l y o u r h u s b a n d , I think I see something. Watch as

he squints. I don’t see it, he says. Get angry with him.

Think how you always notice what he doesn’t: the new

restaurant downtown, your friend’s haircut. Hold it

closer to his face. Does he see it now? How about now?

BETHANY MARCEL

BETHANY MARCEL’s work
has been published in
Fiction Advocate, The
Nervous Breakdown,
Motherwell, and Entropy,
among others. She has
received a residency from
the Spring Creek Project.
She lives in Portland,
Oregon, and is currently
working on her first book.

EXPLORING

THE BOUNDA

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