Paid Post Unlocked: "Yours" by Mary Robison
minimalist flash
Hi friends!
Thanks to all who took part in yesterday’s workshop to benefit Kerouac House! It was a lively session and I enjoyed working with all of you so much.
Today, I’m unlocking a post from Feb., 2024, which was part of a month-long paid subscriber flash immersion event. I have since done a shorter version of this community workshop and plan to do 1 or 2 more in 2025. They are fun, productive, and (I’m told) inspiring. We write to prompts and give each other feedback and encouragement.
I am a little uncomfortable with being so promote-y lately with this newsletter and my workshops, but…I believe in what I’m doing. I pour a lot of time and thought into this work. I love it and you and I’d love to have you join us! Either way, I remain ever grateful for ALL my readers. Your support and enthusiasm truly keep me going. Thank you.
Today, I’d like to look at a flash that mentioned as one of his favorites a while back when we were talking about beloved flash fictions: “Yours” by Mary Robison. We’ll analyze the story and write to a prompt aimed at emulating its subtle emotional power.
I love Mary Robison’s writing. She’s funny, direct, searing, and wise.
Her collection, “Tell Me: Thirty Stories” is well worth your time, as is her novel, “Why Did I Ever.”
I was so glad to see this story mentioned! It’s one of my favorites. It’s not quite 800 words, so it’s definitely a flash fiction. Robison was in her prime in the 1980s. Along with Raymond Carver, she was considered a Minimalist, a style that was popular at the time. She was one of the first short story writers I read and loved.
So much of how flash fiction is written and taught now emphasizes the BIG opening paragraph, poetic language, and the mind-blowing ending, but Robison’s style is quiet and natural. The images are subtle. Even the ending is minimalist. No fanfare. Nothing is fancy here or overblown (though she writes killer dialogue). The emotion is understated, but felt by the reader, because it’s not manipulative or overcooked.
I’d love to hear your own thoughts about this story in the comments. Okay, let’s delve into the story:
“YOURS”
(We talked about titles yesterday and this is a simple, one-word title. Does it do its work for the story? I think so.)
Allison struggles away from her white Renault, limping with the weight of the last of the pumpkins. She found Clark in the twilight on the twig- and leaf-littered porch, behind the house. He wore a tan wool shawl. He was moving up and back in a cushioned glider, pushed by the ball of his slippered foot.”
(This is not opening the story with a bang. This is a quiet opening, gently setting the scene, introducing the two characters.)
Allison lowered a big pumpkin and let it rest on the porch floor.
Clark was much older than she—seventy-eight to Allison’s thirty-five. They had been married for four months. They were both quite tall, with long hands, and their faces looked something alike. Allison wore a natural-hair wig. It was a thick blonde hood around her face. She was dressed in bright-dyed denims today. She wore durable clothes, usually, for she volunteered afternoons at a children’s day-care center.
(Characterization & backstory here. Note the breadcrumbs scattered, the hints: They’ve only been married four months, but look at their ages. The descriptions are deft. We see these two. Note that wig Allison’s wearing which speaks to cancer treatment. Already, we begin to care about these two, especially Allison.)
She put one of the smaller pumpkins on Clark’s long lap. “Now, nothing surreal,” she told him. “Carve just a regular face. These are for kids.”
In the foyer, on the Hepplewhite desk, Allison found the maid’s chore list, with its cross-offs, which included Clark’s supper. Allison went quickly through the day’s mail: a garish coupon packet, a flyer advertising white wines at Jamestown Liquors, November’s pay-TV program guide, and—the worst thing, the funniest—an already opened, extremely unkind letter from Clark’s married daughter, up North. “You’re an old fool,” Allison read, and “You’re being cruelly deceived.” There was a gift check for twenty-five dollars, made out to Clark, enclosed—his birthday had just passed—but it was uncashable. It was signed, “Jesus H. Christ.”
(Here’s a shift. Robison has introduced more “trouble” with the daughter’s letter. The author’s trademark humor in that signature. Small details give us a sense of their life together, their circumstances.)
Late, late into this night, Allison and Clark gutted and carved the pumpkins together, at an old table set out on the back porch. They worked over newspaper after soggy newspaper, using paring knives and spoons and a Swiss Army knife Clark liked for the exact shaping of his teeth and eyes and nostrils. Clark had been a doctor—an internist—but he was also a Sunday watercolor painter. His four pumpkins were expressive and artful. Their carved features were suited to the sizes and shapes of the pumpkins. Two looked ferocious and jagged. One registered surprise. The last was serene and beaming.
(I find it both charming and kind how they work on these pumpkins for the day care kids so late into the night. We get more of a sense of Clark in this paragraph.I see something of the progression of illness to the acceptance of death in the jack-o-lanterns’ expressions.)
Allison’s four faces were less deftly drawn, with slits and areas of distortion. She had cut triangles for noses and eyes. The mouths she had made we all just—wedges— - 2 - two turned up and two turned down.
By one A.M., they were finished. Clark, who had bent his long torso forward to work, moved over to the glider again and looked out sleepily at nothing. All the neighbors’ lights were out across the ravine. For the season and time, the Virginia night was warm. Most of the leaves had fallen and blown away already, and the trees stood unbothered. The moon was round, above them.
(The story continues to be a quiet one. We are just here, witnessing this couple, but as a reader I have not forgotten her wig, her illness, and their newness as a married couple. The details contribute to the tone. Clark looks out “sleepily at nothing” and “the moon as round, above them.” There’s an emptiness and starkness to the landscape. All feels very silent.)
Allison cleaned up the mess. Your jack-o’-lanterns are much much better than mine,”
Clark said to her. “Like hell,” Allison said. “Look at me,” Clark said, and Allison did. She was holding a squishy bundle of newspapers. The papers reeked sweetly with the smell of pumpkin innards. “Yours are far better,” he said.
“You’re wrong. You’ll see when they’re lit,” Allison said.
(What do you think of the imagery here? “The papers reeked sweetly with the smell of pumpkin innards.” Allison has wrapped the innards up to dispose of them. I feel something of her impending death in this. Note the gentle exchange. His insistence that hers are “far better.”)
She went inside, came back with yellow vigil candles. It took her a while to get each candle settled into a pool of its own melted wax inside the jack-o’-lanterns, which were lined up in a row on the porch railing. Allison went along and relit each candle and fixed the pumpkin lids over the little flames. “See?” she said. They sat together a moment and looked at the orange faces.
(Oof. Vigil candles. Of course they are used in jack-o-lanterns, but that detail, called out and named as such, lends the image weight.)
“We’re exhausted. It’s good-night time,” Allison said. “Don’t blow out the candles. I’ll put in new ones tomorrow.” In her bedroom, a few weeks earlier in her life than had been predicted, she began to die. “Don’t look at me if my wig comes off,” she told Clark. “Please.” Her pulse cords were fluttering under his fingers. She raised her knees and kicked away the comforter. She said something to Clark about the garage being locked.
(This is where Robison breaks my heart. “Don’t blow out the candles.” Stand vigil. And earlier than had been predicted “she began to die.” And does she sleep in the wig? I think she does. The mundane detail of asking about the garage. Everything hurts here.)
At the telephone, Clark had a clear view out back and down to the porch. He wanted to get drunk with his wife once more. He wanted to tell her, from the greater perspective he had, that to own only a little talent, like his, was an awful, plaguing thing; that being only a little special meant you expected too much, most of the time, and like yourself too little. He wanted to assure her that she had missed nothing.
Clark was speaking into the phone now. He watched the jack-o’-lanterns. The jack-o’-lanterns watched him.
(Clark’s epiphany after his wife’s death—and that’s only signaled by “at the telephone” is about himself. She maybe always looked to him as more special than she was—he’d see his jack-o-lanterns were better once they were lit, his being older than she—in this moment he feels she’d always been wrong about him, that she’d “missed nothing.” And what do we think of that final image? The jack-o-lanterns signify death. At least that’s my interpretation. Now it’s staring him in the face. Now, consider again that one word title. Feel how it resonates.)
YOUR PROMPT
Today, I’d like you to create a quiet scene with two characters, where the “trouble” lies beneath the surface. Let it inform the dialogue, the actions. Maybe, as in “Yours,” your two characters are working through something together.
Aim for simplicity in all aspects of your story. Find the quiet power in images. Trust them to do their work. Lead your readers gently through the story.
And find a good title for your story.
[I’m just now realizing this prompt is similar to the “wear your heart on the page” prompt I shared recently. Consider this further practice in this type of flash that is more scene-driven. See my newsletter from 2021 below for more thoughts on this.]
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Peace & Love. Stay strong, good people,
Kathy
Thank you for this close reading of a story I've always loved.
I've always been puzzled, and remain puzzled, about Clark's thoughts at the end. Sometimes I find it strange that he's drifting off into a reverie that seems to be primarily about himself and his lack of talent.
And this: "He wanted to assure her that she had missed nothing." How could he feel sure that someone dying at the age of thirty-five had missed nothing? Or is he telling himself this to try to console himself about her death?
I suppose one of the reasons the story is so haunting is that these questions feel hard to resolve.
Again, thank you.
I linger on this line from Allison: “We’re exhausted. It’s good-night time.”
On my first read-through, I assumed that "We’re" referred to Allison and Clark, finding it slightly odd that she spoke for them both—perhaps Clark wasn’t sleepy; he gave no indication of being exhausted?—but I moved past that, figuring it a fair assumption given that he was seventy-eight!
Now, though, I can’t help but wonder: if the row of flickering jack-o'-lanterns represents her at the end, perhaps the slipped "We’re" was another indication that she was close to death—no longer thinking of herself as an individual and melding into the collective consciousness surrounding her.