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Jul 10, 2020

Furious Fiction June

For the Australian Writers' Centre monthly contest. Also not a winner!

Your story’s first and last words must begin with J.
Your story must include a game being played.
Your story must include the phrase MISS/MISSED THE BOAT.


Those Who Can’t
 
    Juggling looked so easy on the video. But it was one of many skills on the list that was about to be crossed out, unachieved. Guitar, no: It chewed up Justine’s finger tips, and her hands were too fat for it, anyway. French braiding, no: Her arms got tired. Sourdough bread, no: Like she was really going scoop a cup of glop into the trash every day? What a mess. What else? There had to be something tangible Justine could achieve within the confines of her little apartment. As CyrusFlyrus waggled his eyebrows and added another banana to his blurred arc of flying fruit, she closed the video channel and started another game of online solitaire.

    All the vloggers she followed had made impressive progress toward mastering some new skill, or were seeing the first fruits of a project that they’d started back when they all went inside. GreenSmoothieGirl had fully rebranded as GreenBalconyGirl (“Yay, plant with me, on my Green Balcony!”) and was nibbling the first sugar snap peas growing from the vines climbing her railings. FrankieFilms was almost done watching and reporting (“Lights, camera, Franction!”) on each one of Cinématique’s 100 Essential Movies for True Film Lovers. Not enough for him to get through one a day, he’d been doing double features on the weekends. Where did people find the time, or the motivation?

    She scrolled through the pages she followed and saw graceful handstands, drafts of novels, adorable pet tricks, blueprints for achieving social justice. And here, 78 days into the quarantine, Justine was feeling like she’d missed the boat. It seemed like it would be so easy! Just pick a hobby, practice it a little each day, and voila! You were good at something. But she was still just as bad at everything as she’d always been. If not worse. She had failed to craft an invigorating and inspiring morning routine to give structure to her day. No sign of a relaxing and reflective evening routine, unless you counted looking up from YouTube and cursing at the clock each night. A tidy meal plan that incorporated each day’s leftovers into the next day’s menu? She had a vague memory of a time when she ate three meals a day, but now she mostly grazed from one plate — okay, bag — of snacks to the next. There was no cleaning schedule. Or much cleaning, for that matter. She pushed aside a pile of unread books and clicked on another video about decluttering. A smile crept across her face.
   
She cleared the laundry off the bed behind her, tilted the desk light just so, and hit record on the laptop. “Hi guys! You can achieve anything you set your mind to. Whatever it is you want to do, learn how to just do it, with me, JustineDoIt!”

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