Gregory Howard teaches creative writing, contemporary literature, and film studies at the University of Maine. His fiction and essays have appeared in Web Conjunctions, Harp & Altar, and Tarpaulin Sky, among other journals. Hospice (FC2) is his first novel. He lives in Bangor, Maine with his wife and cats.
An excerpt from his novel, "Hospice," appeared in Issue Sixty-Eight of The Collagist.
Here, he answers questions in the form of excerpts Hospice.
What is writing like?
Here is what she remembers. She is sitting cross-legged underneath the kitchen table with translucent tape across her mouth. Is that right? It is night and she can see the bare white legs of her mother who is mopping the floor. It is late at night, two, maybe three. She assumes it is her mother mopping the floor. Who else could it be? On her lap she has placed a small orange pillow and on the pillow a stuffed crow. There is a sound like whispering but percussive and the mop jabs at the floor. The stuffed crow has large white glass eyes not small black ones. She calls him Henry but not to his face. Soon she will open her mouth. She will open it slowly. The tape will peel off her face, first in small bursts then all at once. It is the sensation of becoming, like pecking through a soft membrane or crawling out of a thick lake. But for a moment it will feel like she will never open her mouth again, like she has no mouth at all.
What isn’t writing like?
Every day I feel myself moving away from the self I have been towards something dark and diffuse. But I am certain that my friend is waiting for me on the other side. I am certain he is waiting there, holding with him all my life’s days
When you do it, why?
The games weren’t Tim and Marinella’s first choice and in truth they weren’t very good at them. Often Lucy had to shout corrections or even stop them in the middle of some confused gesture to offer reprimands and show them how a thing should be done.
Look, she told them. This is important. We’re going to play until you get it right. If you can’t do the simple stuff there’s no way we can get to the next level.
When you don’t, why?
I’ll find her, Lucy said, miserably. I’ll be better. I’ll do my best.
Oh no, the head nurse said. No you won’t. I’ve seen your best. I’ve watched it unfold, tethered, as it is, to delusions of insight and propriety. My word! You’re like an unattended
garden hose, spraying everything but the vegetables! No, no, my dear. What you’ll do now is my best. What you’ll do now is exactly what you are told. You’ve had your chance and it
turned out terribly. Now, the nurse said cheerfully, it’s time to grow up.