Photo by Erik Karits: https://www.pexels.com/photo/cockroach-in-macro-photography-11022142/

Writing inspired by the following SWC prompts:

Albedo

Albedo is a scientific (often astronomical) term used to describe ‘fraction of light that a surface reflects’. For example, we see the moon because of its high albedo, not because it produces its own light. Snow also has a high albedo, whereas wood is low. Write a story or a poem using albedo either literally or metaphorically.

Albedo

by Connie Phlipot

Marjorie scrolled through life unobserved, unnoticed. She walked with an economy of motion, never dawdling, never hurrying; her pace always suited the situation. She spoke quietly, but not so softly that anyone had to strain to understand. The appropriate volume, like the appropriate pace. Not gregarious, but not so laconic that anyone would remark on her lack of words. Questions, answers, comments. Just what was needed. Nothing more.

It was a good personality for her profession as a journalist, particularly when writing about people. The interview was her forte. The subjects would talk at length, not noticing the gentle prompts that got them to say things they had no intention of revealing. Later, the subject could not recall Marjorie’s name or any other details about her. ‘I just told my story,’ they’d say. But of course, there it was more to it. The interviewee’s acquaintances, even close friends, family members would remark after reading the interview: ‘I never knew that about you. How come you didn’t tell me you did such remarkable things, or had such brilliant thoughts. You should write it down, you’d have an incredible, philosophical treatise, or a best-selling memoir.’ Impressed by these words, the interviewee would start to write and be unable to recall a single thing they’d thought or said. Not that Marjorie had made it up. She was as diligent a fact checker as she was an interviewer. Perhaps she improved their language, adding a more elegant articulation here or there, but otherwise it was the person’s own words, thoughts, experiences, that she had extracted from them.

Marjorie had few close friends, but a wide range of acquaintances. Usually, she met them through her work, or in places that impelled people to talk — the hairdresser, a long plane ride, lonely bars. The middle-aged women getting highlights in her dull greying hair who had been convinced when she walked into the salon that her prime was over, she’d never find a life companion, would emerge after a conversation with Marjorie glowing in the sense of her own, unique beauty and worth.

How did Marjorie feel about this? Did she regret that others got all the attention, while her talents went unnoticed? You might as well ask the sun if it resents that the dull orb, the moon, is celebrated by multiple cultures when it makes its appearance as small shaft of life each four weeks. Or that poets and pop singers exalt the romance of its fullness, a coincidence of its trajectory around the world and none of its own doing.