Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 44

Backstory

It seems the appropriate time to share some of the backstory with the reader. The reader may be getting some idea of the motivations behind Susie and Finn, but likely have forgotten Walt entirely. No criticism intended, as everyone forgets Walt.

Susan Bennet: A Study in Ascent and Disruption

Susan Bennet was raised in Shelton, Connecticut; a town of rusted mill bones and stubborn pride, where the air still carried the scent of machine oil and Sunday sermons. Her childhood was framed by the clatter of lunch pails and the quiet resignation of lives lived in declining repetition. Shelton was blue collar to the marrow, and Susan hated it; not for its labor, but for its limits. The town’s rhythms felt like a sentence, and she read each cracked sidewalk and shuttered store front as a warning; stay small, stay grateful, stay put.

But Susan was not built for containment. From the moment she could read, she devoured everything; textbooks, newspapers, the backs of cereal boxes. She was top of her class by middle school, and by high school, she was orbiting a different sun. Teachers whispered about her in the staff lounge, not with concern but with awe. She didn’t just excel; she burned. And beneath her straight A exterior was a restless, electric hunger.