SmokeLong Quarterly

In several instances in the story, for example when Oscar tumbles out of his urn or when the lamps smoke, we are thrust into the surreal with such swiftness and smoothness that the reader is never jarred. How do you think about taking risks in flash fiction? What was your process for writing those sections?

I’m a big believer that every story needs to have a turn or shift somewhere. At some point, it needs to transform into something else. That’s tricky in flash fiction, because there’s so little space to make complicated maneuvers. But it can be beneficial, too, because it forces you to do away with hemming and hawing, with overwriting—you just have dive right in. In this case, I think the swiftness and immediacy actually work to reinforce the sense of the surreal.

Objects serve as touchstones in this piece, and while each object stands on its own, together they create the effect of what the story refers to as “a labyrinth.” What role do objects play in flash fiction for you? When writing, what kinds of objects do you find yourself gravitating toward?

I’m very sentimental about objects. My wife loves getting rid of things, but I can’t bear to throw anything away. I get too attached. It’s even worse if an object is broken or worn—then it becomes pitiable. But of course, objects have a way of possessing you, too. I tried to capture that feeling here. For this story, I thought about the kinds of things you find in dusty antique shops, which are always so specific and strange. And eerie, because they seem imported from someone else’s life, maybe even someone now dead.

You do a wonderful job of foreshadowing in a way that prepares the reader for the ending while still allowing it to feel surprising. How did you approach balancing subtle foreshadowing with surprise?

My favorite piece of foreshadowing in the story is when she describes the guest as loading the batteries in the clock like shotgun shells. I was really pleased to come across that image, not just because it suggests something menacing about him, but because it recalls Oscar, the dead husband. Same thing with the pacemaker. I was reaching for images that pointed backward as well as forward.

While the story is firmly rooted in a specific place and objects, it also has a hovering quality, as though it exists slightly outside of time. And then there is Oscar as a clock—an object that appears at the beginning of the story but, by the end, has accumulated so much meaning. Could you talk about your approach to time and recurring objects in this piece?

You know, until you asked, I never thought about the clock as an image of time—mostly I needed it to be a mechanical object that could conceivably be mistaken for an urn, and it has a kind of old-timey appeal that seemed right for Gran, the lonely widow. Now it seems obvious to me that it’s an image of time. It’s hard for me to imagine what time must be like for an elderly person. Does it go fast or slow? Does it seem to slip away or pile up? It was important to me that there be no markers of time passing in this story, because Gran is losing her sense of time. It could take place over days or weeks, or even months.

What was the greatest challenge you faced while writing this piece? How did you overcome it? And what was the most surprising or delightful part of writing the story?

I fiddled for a long time with the ending. It was important to me that it give a jolt of surprise or recognition, but I didn’t want it to feel like a punchline, or a twist like at the end of an O. Henry story. I’m still not sure it works as well as I would like. The delight for me, like with all successful flash fiction (and I hope this story is successful), is finding out how big a world can be contained in such a small space.