The lockdown blog: day 11

Twitterature. I am not a Twitter-er but the idea of using this network to publish stories, drip fed 140 characters at a time, excites and intrigues me. Yes, it's a thing. Blogs sit in the shade, frumpy and plain beside this literary coyness. The chicken to Twitter's turkey fat. Tantalizing. Co-opting short attention spans and unsocial social networks for loudly publishing your fiction seems extremely foxy. 
I know these foxy pieces of fiction exist, I've done my research, but classically, I cannot find any. One elusive example captured my imagination whilst researching this very subject. It is called "Some contemporary characters". Clever, very clever. The author is Rick Moody. What a character. 
I know about the story, the premise of the story, but I cannot find THE story. That is to say, the tweets seem to have disappeared into cyber darkness. 

Another major character in my life right now is child A who, upon my arrival yesterday, announced the following:

"I like your helmet. I had a really weird dream yesterday, you were in it"

These two juxtaposing statements were given no hesitation but presented succinctly and matter-of-factly, as if she was telling me what she had eaten for lunch. 

Questioning her about statement two and exactly 'what role' I had in her dream, I was told that I had been on a 'weight watchers diet' and had arrived proudly and excitedly into her dream, proclaiming that I had lost loads of weight. 
"See here this 'before' picture", my dream self had exclaimed to which Child A retorted that she saw no difference. I had huffily exited through her front door and her dream. 

Child A, in life as in dream. Blunt and to the point. 

Characters can play an important role in this lockdown, if we let them. Be they the terse words of a humorists tweet; the kindly next door neighbor that delivers you cake (still waiting); the reassuring words of a friendly text... or a delightfully assertive child. Let's not limit the characters in our lives, but count them. 

xoxo Be a character

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