Soft

The florescent lights beam, brutal and unforgiving. Her computer monitor flickers, one speaker making a low humming sound. Joy taps the speaker against the dirty gray cubicle wall and the hum subsides. The flicker continues, a blip Joy notices on days when she feels terrible and everything annoys her.

Today is one of the worse days. Joy chugs a fizzy orange concoction of water and Emergen-C and devours a lukewarm Sausage McMuffin.

Like I always say, drown your allergies and feed your hangover.

Joy checks her calendar for the day and groans, slumping down in her chair and jutting her chin with a childish pout.

“What’s wrong?” Her cubicle neighbor Shawn pops his head over their shared wall. “Jesus, Joy. You look awful.”

“I feel awful,” Joy admits.

“Is it your allergies?”

“And nausea.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Shawn says. He walks around to prop himself on the corner of Joy’s cubicle, crossing his legs and blocking her escape.

“I doubt it,” Joy says — but she sits up straighter and sucks in her stomach a little, angry at her body’s treason, for giving Shawn a reason to think he could be right. She tucks a swath of braids behind her ear and glances back at the Outlook calendar on her screen. “I have an early meeting I forgot about, and since I’m not feeling 100%—”

God, I should not have had a second margarita. Who gets hungover from two margaritas at dinner?

“You’re at that age, you know. You should be careful. I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it?” Shawn presses.

Joy’s brown eyes meet his blue ones, soft and kind. She twists her gold bracelet around her wrist, searching for a response that doesn’t involve expletives.

I got nothing.

“Just think about it, Joy. And let me know if you want to talk. Or need some aspirin,” Shawn says. He withdraws back to his cubicle, the wall separating them once more.

The speakers emit the same long, low hum. Joy unplugs them and throws them in the trash, watching them fall to the bottom and the plastic trash bag billow, an insulated bubble forming and absorbing one of the morning’s grievances. She collects her warped legal pad and the pen with the fewest visible teeth marks on the cap and heads to her boss’s office.

When Joy returns she has six pages of notes to transcribe, the imprint of her bracelet on her wrist, and Paulo pawing through the top drawer of her file cabinet.

“Can I help you?”

With a wrinkled Oxford and Ray-Bans perched on the edge of a broad nose, Paulo looks how Joy feels, but without the benefit of being able to slap on some makeup and minimize the reanimated corpse effect.

Chalk one up for the beauty myth.

“My highlighter ran out. Hey, do you not want those speakers?” Paulo gestures to her trash can.

“You can have ‘em, but they don’t work. They keep making noise,” Joy says.

“Isn’t that what speakers are supposed to do?”

Joy feels like her whole body is blushing. Maybe it’s just the hangover. She shakes her head and takes a swig of tepid vending machine Vitamin Water that cost her $2.50.

And what little appetite I regained.

“No, I mean, they make a weird feedback sound like every few minutes. It was driving me crazy,” Joy bites her bottom lip and presses forward. “And you can have a highlighter, but ask next time, okay? It’s rude to go through someone else’s desk.”

“Mee-YOW!” Paulo quips as he curls stubby fingers around her favorite purple highlighter. “Someone’s in a mood today.”

Shawn takes the opportunity to wheel his desk chair around and mortify Joy.

“Mood swing?” He looks at her with the same kind eyes. “Could be hormones.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Thanks for the highlighter,” Paulo retreats to his cubicle at the end of the row, his usual swagger diminished to a sluggish stumble.

“Sunglasses inside? Yikes,” she jerks her thumb in Paulo’s direction, hoping Shawn will take the bait.

“Probably out late last night. It happens!”

Ladies get hungover, too.

“Probably. Happens to all of us,” Joy agrees. She pauses, twisting her bracelet around until the largest chain centers over her pulse point, faint but dark veins underneath. “You know, Shawn, asking someone not to go through your desk isn’t a mood swing. It’s basic common courtesy.”

“You’ve never gotten mad at Paulo before,” Shawn waves his hand dismissively.

“He’s always asked before,” Joy counters. “You’d say something if you came back and he was clawing through your stuff.”

Shawn mumbles an agreement. The arm of his office chair connects with the cubicle wall, the smack punctuating his retreat.

That night, Joy slides her heels off as soon as she steps into her apartment. She slides the bracelet off her wrist and lets it fall onto the counter, the clatter echoing. After half a dozen makeup remover wipes, the fresh healthy face she wore most of the day lies in layers in her trash can.

Paulo never took those speakers.

A spring storm settles in for the weekend and Joy binge-watches the first two seasons of Orange Is the New Black and eats only oatmeal and the dregs of her frozen dinner supply, refusing to leave or pay delivery fees.

Joy thinks about Shawn, too: his misunderstanding, but also his kindness. The way he asks about her weekend and saves a corner seat for her in department meetings. How large and bright his smile was when he came back from meeting his first grandchild.

He doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t mean it.

The sunrise wakes her on Monday. Her routine is slow, deliberate: selecting the perfect outfit, packing her gym bag. Before she leaves, she slides her gold bracelet back on, the metal cool but comforting.

Carpe diem.



Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Rob Gregory

1:1 - Dot Dannenberg

interviewed by Natasha Akery

Over the next few weeks, 1:1000 will take you behind the scenes with our core writing and editorial team. We'll show you more about what makes these writers tick (or maybe twitch). 

This week we’re interviewing Dot Dannenberg, an English professor with a knack for snark and shade. But don’t let her sharp tongue fool you; she’s sweet as a Georgia peach when she’s had enough shut eye. Let’s meet the writer between such stories as “Product Placement,” “The Good Stuff,” and “One Lucky Bastard.”

1:1000: Your education and work experience reveal a long and committed relationship with words. When did this love affair begin?

DOT DANNENBERG: When I was five, I had a wonderful kindergarten teacher who emphasized a lot of creative writing and sharing--we wrote and illustrated our own stories, then read them aloud in the "Author Chair." That year, one of my stories (about a cowboy who loses his cows) won a county-wide contest. At that point, most kids graduated to video games and sports, but for me, the whole writing thing got more and more out of hand. I got really pushy with my teachers, making them use their bookbinding equipment on all my "novels" (featuring, usually, giraffes in space). By high school, I was monopolizing all my AP Lit teacher's time making her listen to my horrible, vague, Sylvia-Plath-esque poetry during her planning period. I also grew up in what my friend Katie likes to call a "learning family"--my parents always encouraged me to read whatever I wanted. The only rule was "no books at the dinner table." The rest is history.

1:1000: You’ve said more or less in the past that you don’t really consider yourself a writer. So, what compels you to write? 

DD: Oh, I very much DO consider myself a writer! For the longest time, I thought in order to be a writer you had to have a laundry list of publications and do the whole submissions hustle non-stop. I used to beat myself up about not getting up at 5 AM to write and not always obsessing about my characters, like some of my writer friends do. But then I realized a writer is simply a person who writes. And I am a person who writes. I will admit, though, that I am a very deadline-oriented writer. I can get a massive amount done in a very condensed amount of time, but there has to be an end goal in mind.

1:1000: You were a poet first, correct? 

DD: True. Sorry, poetry. I am a giant traitor. I started writing poetry in high school and studied poetry all the way through college. Afterwards, I got my MFA in poetry from Pacific University. I was actually terrified when I was asked to join the 1:1000 team, because I had never written what I considered a successful short story. But I found that flash fiction actually has a lot in common with poetry, structurally. You have a limited amount of space to work with, and you have to use that space as a window into an entire world. Also, poetry and flash fiction both depend upon image. The image takes the place of the backstory, the exposition, and all the blah-blah-blah. I also think poetry and flash fiction have to do the same work in their endings. W.B. Yeats said a poem should "click shut" like a box--I think the best flash fiction also does that. It has to feel complete, despite its length. I can't see the future, so I don't know if I'll ever go back to writing poems. I think, as a writer, I tend to get bored pretty easily. Once I finish a piece, I'm over it and on to the next thing. So right now, fiction is what excites me.

1:1000: In your stories such as “Brothers,” “Be Great” and “Los Niños,” you present cultural perspectives that are almost certainly from direct experience. How do these ideas occur to you? 

DD: A lot of my inspiration comes from my students. I teach English at a career college, and most of my students are from different cultural backgrounds than my own. Through getting to know them and reading their writing, they tell me the most heartbreaking stories about their lives. I don't lift their experiences directly for my own writing--that seems wrong to me, as they have their own voices and the right to tell their own stories. But teaching has taught me how to see the world through their perspectives, and once I'm in that world, it doesn't take long for my own characters to begin to speak. I do have a student who got pregnant in Nicaragua when she was sent there as punishment, just like the protagonist in "Los Niños." But in real life, the girl didn't have an abortion. Her son is in elementary school now, and she's back in the states for good. The inciting image behind "Be Great" actually came from a Facebook post I saw--someone talking about eating food their late grandmother had frozen the season before. For that protagonist, Z, I had one of my students in mind--just his attitude, more than anything, but it's not his story.

1:1000: In addition to multicultural perspectives, you also dabble in evangelical Christian environments with stories like “In the Darkness,” but the events that take place are a little hard to believe to the unfamiliar reader. What’s your motivation with these particular stories? 

DD: I think you've nailed it, actually--I want readers to see that these mindsets and events really do exist out there. I grew up, off and on, in the evangelical church, and it took until I went to college to realize that some of the things I experienced weren't the norm, even for people who grew up Christian. I'm especially fascinated by the way "youth" church was done in the late 90s and early 2000s--the purity culture, street evangelism, the attempt to stamp out secular influence. Many people I meet as an adult are so surprised by my church camp stories--white boys in blackface (really), people throwing their entire CD collections in the lake, pudding wrestling. (True! All of it!) So, in part, I think I write these stories to surprise and delight unfamiliar readers and strike a nerve of nostalgia in people who do remember this crazy stuff. But there's also a layer of complexity that looms anytime you write about religion. I don't really reflect on my time in the church from a place of bitterness, but for a lot of people, there is that baggage. And I like that you can't write about religion, even in criticism, without acknowledging that it still hits on elements of truth--the quest for connection, what happens when we die, how should we approach shame and guilt.

1:1000: So, can we talk about your dog? 

DD: CAN we. My dog's name is Moses. He weighs 95 lbs (he's half Great Pyrenees). He has his own Instagram feed (@thechosendog). Right now, he's lying on my living room rug snoring. Someone once referred to him as my "child," and I realized that actually, he's more like the house grandpa. He doesn't have a job. He sleeps all day. He barks when strangers walk by the property ("get off my lawn!"). He really only wants to eat cookies. Periodically, he complains about going up and down stairs. He is one of the great joys of my life.

1:1000: When you’re not fielding submissions, editing stories, and writing your own for One for One Thousand, what can you be found doing? 

DD: Grading papers. A lot of my life gets eaten up by teaching. I had a professor in college who worried over me becoming a teacher, telling me that teaching eats up all the time for writing. And in part, that's true. But it also fuels the writing. It's a delicate compromise. I like to remind myself that I have the same amount of hours in my day as Beyonce does. I also spend a lot of time listening to audiobooks on the metro and discovering new restaurants with my husband (who would like me to ask readers for support as he embarks on a 30-day frozen yogurt cleanse). And I go shopping a lot. Oops.

1:1000: These days, it seems like “highly sensitive person” is the new “introvert.” As an HSP, do you see that play into your writing style or habits? 

DD: In some ways, it's a natural fit. HSP, for readers who are unfamiliar, in general means I'm very stimulus reactive. Not just emotionally, but also anything sense-related--noises, smells, visuals, whatever. I in part credit my HSP tendencies for making me hyper-aware--I can catch all the small details of the world, then drop them like little jewels into my stories. I also think it's an HSP thing to not play well with others and have a general disregard for the man. As writing is a pretty solitary pursuit (and one that should turn a questioning eye on society), this works out well. The only time I'd say the HSP tendencies don't jive with the writer life is that I really can't get my best work done in coffee shops. THE COFFEE SMELL. THE BAD SATELLITE RADIO PLAYLISTS. OH GOD, MAKE IT STOP. I also get really growly when people try to read over my shoulder when my work is still in draft mode. GO AWAYYYYY.

1:1000: Do you have a muse? 

DD: I think right now I have several. 1. Sleep. If I get enough sleep, I am a manic robot who can do EVERYTHING. And that's inspiring. 2. My student, Tiffany, who shakes my world up every day with her one-liners (The latest: "You know there's a season for people to get pregnant? Everybody has their season. Mine's winter, so this year I know I gotta zip my coat allllll the way up."). 3. Moody movies (especially French art house crap or Noah Baumbach-type films). It’s the triumvirate: energy, reality, cerebral fantasy.

1:1000: What words of advice do you have for your eight-year-old self? 

DD: Stop eating bread right now, and you'll save yourself from 20 years of misery as a fat person. Oh, and also, keep writing! Kickball is totally overrated.

1:1 - Erin Justice

interviewed by Dot Dannenberg

Over the next few weeks, 1:1000 will take you behind the scenes with our core writing and editorial team. We'll show you more about what makes these writers tick (or maybe twitch).

First up is Erin Justice (just Justice, please), a twenty-something who loves words and books and has a weakness for chips and salsa. But around here, she's better known as the writer behind Pennybacker, Hail Caesar..., Hoodoo, Sanctuary, and this week's Famine.

1:1000: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

ERIN JUSTICE: My parents were great bedtime readers and storytellers, and growing up in the South I was exposed to an amazing folklore tradition. I grew up with stories all around me, and I could usually be found with a book in hand. In high school, I started writing more than reading. When I was fifteen, I decided I would be a novelist. When I was eighteen, I decided I abhorred Northwestern's English department. I stopped writing for years, because in college you're supposed to "find yourself." It took me years to realize that I pretty much had that figured out in high school, and I'm still trying to reconcile the self-made me with, well, me. And for better or worse, I'm a big ole word nerd who wants to write.

1:1000: What writing projects are you working on now?

EJ: I've written one full manuscript - I started it in high school, so it's kind of a hot mess. It helped me figure out my bad writing habits, and my strengths and weaknesses. I'm working on another manuscript right now - a good one, I hope - that's set in the same world, a couple of generations after the first one. I don't want to give too many details, but I'm describing it as a post-apocalyptic/fantasy mash-up. I've also been working on a couple of short stories - one for fun, one for submission. Most of the day-to-day stuff happens over at my blog, and I have some pretty fun projects planned for the rest of the year. I was working on a novella, but it got too cumbersome and felt forced, so I've tabled it.

1:1000: Where do you do most of your writing, and do you have a writing routine?

EJ: I do most of my writing at home, though I have been known to bang out a few hundred words at the Starbucks near work. My fiance and I are lucky to have more house than we need (right now), so I claimed the smallest room as a home office. I try to keep to a routine, but it shifts with every major change in my life. The biggest one of late has been a (much needed) recommitment to my health, and trying to figure out how a workout fits into my day - and where that leaves writing. My goal is to have my home office and routine squared away by the end of August.

1:1000: This may be a challenge for as much as you read, but what's the last thing you read that blew your mind?

EJ: Ha. Probably Monica Byrne's The Girl in the Road. It's my favorite book so far this year. I finished it a few weeks ago and have been telling everyone to check it out. It's so immersive and so deep - as soon as I finished it, I wanted to reread it from the beginning, just to try and unpack more of it. It explore themes of identity, gender, sexuality, perception, and religion. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head! It's very Margaret Atwood (can that be a thing now?).

1:1000: For 1:1000, you've written about everything from lesbians on spring break to a plague that wipes out humanity to Hurricane Katrina. What are some of the sources of your inspiration?

EJ: I had a wonderful childhood. I think I need to say that right off the bat, because there's a dark streak (or you know, a total blackout) in a lot of what I write. I get inspired by music - I love listening to musical scores, and I'll often intentionally select soundtracks that channel the tone I want to capture. Other times I get lost in music, and I end up dreaming up characters. I also just write what I want to write. That sounds very dumb and basic, but it really can be a useful starting point. If I can identify a theme or mood, the characters usually take over. And sometimes the end result is better than what I planned! "Tequila Sunrise" started as a love story, but originally between Cheyenne and - gasp - Adrian. Obviously, that didn't work. The writing told me that, and so did Cheyenne, in her own fictional character way.

1:1000: What's your approach to engaging with a photo and sticking within the limits of the 1,000-word form?

EJ: I treat my story as a snapshot of a character's life. I'm trying to capture a piece of someone (or a shared relationship), and I only have a 1,000 words to make it meaningful. You can reduce someone in a 1,000 words - or you can give them a significant, resonating story...I think I'm more successful with some pieces than with others.

1:1000: You've described your writing as having "a touch of whimsy and darkness, skating on the edge between magic and madness: fanciful and yet feral." I've heard this sort of writing described as "genre bending"--what appeals to you about writing between these lines?

EJ: Ha! Well, the "fanciful and yet feral" line is something I got from Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child. I read that book on a ski trip and decided it was the perfect way to describe the dark, fantastical tone and concepts in most of my writing. I know this is kind of a cop-out to this answer, but what appeals to me is that this is voice I've found. It took me years to find it (and accept it), but I guess genre bending is who I am as a writer. And I think we're seeing more and more of that, on a larger scale - books that are YA, but also dystopian and sci-fi and in turn, horror. Fantasy that blends into biography or epic poetry. When my parents grew up, "creative non-fiction" wasn't a thing, but now you have to have something lyrical and captivating if you want to be successful (and heard). I guess we're all just trying to be our own storytellers.

1:1000: You, maybe more than anyone else I know, live an entirely immersive literary life. You write stories for 1:1000 and your own blog, Manuscripts & Marginalia. You seem to be constantly reading and reviewing books. And you even have time to write about makeup and clothing box subscriptions hauls each month. On top of this, you have your lengthier writing projects, and you still have time to keep your facebook wall flowing with links to the best craft articles on the web. TEACH US YOUR BLACK MAGIC. How can we lowly mortals be as prolific and engaged as you are?

EJ: Well, part of it just that I have this weird space in my life right now. I'm in between education programs right now (I want to get my MFA, because of course I do). I don't have kids (I've noticed this is when many parents go "ohhhhh!"). As far as tangible takeaways - I listen to audiobooks as I'm driving (my daily commute is ninety minutes total) or doing chores. I have an Audible account and I increased the Narration speed. That's been a big factor in how many books I finish during the year. I also started using Klout, which gives me an option to schedule Facebook/Twitter posts. I tend to check RSS feeds early in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening, so it helps me avoid a social media blitzkrieg. I also tend to approach anything as an exercise in voice. The downside is that I think I've started to lose some of my own touch. If you read my blog, you'd get the impression that I'm a fashionista who can hold her own at Sephora. The reality is I live in comfortable shirts and jeans, and my makeup routine usually consists of me poking myself in the eye with something black and smudgy. I don't want to 180-degree overhaul my blog, but I will be making some very deliberate content/tone changes soon so RealMe can talk over #Me.

1:1000: How do you manage to balance your day job with the work you really want to be doing?

EJ: Sometimes well and sometimes poorly. At times it isn't so much a balance as it is a teeter-totter. I do set boundaries. If I have an idea at work, I jot it down. I force myself to take my break to capture words that won't leave me alone. I also leave the building if I want to write during the day. Staying in the office is begging to be interrupted or just plain blocked. Self-motivation and pep talks work, too. There are days when I have to remind myself that I'm blessed to have a stable job, benefits, and a (fairly) regular 40-hour/week schedule. My day job is a safety net, which can be a good and bad thing. I try to focus on the good as much as I can. One thing I didn't think of until now - I work with curriculum at a university. I don't see students every single day, but I have to understand students' learning styles and motivations. I think about students a lot in my job, and all the opportunities they have is another source of motivation for me. I'm also inspired by the number of graduate students who choose to dedicate time and energy into a deliberate choice and effort to change their lives. I don't want to be my own biggest limitation or missed opportunity.

1:1000: What sayings or mantras are you living by lately?

EJ: Lately? That's a good caveat. I could go with "be a fountain, not a drain," because I want to inspire others. Or I could say "collect moments not things" because I'm trying to focus on the now rather than the objective materialistic representation of the now. I could go with "We have always fought," which is the title of Kameron Hurley's Hugo-nominated blog post about women being people with agency. Or I could say <insert hip phrase from pop culture reference> because <hip things the youth say on the interwebz>. But really, after browsing my Pinterest inspiration board for too long, I'm just gonna have to go with the last sentence from the final Calvin & Hobbes strip: "It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy...let's go exploring!" The world is a limitless, wonderful place, and I don't want to forget that.