memoir – Fauna Lewis Writes

B97 5HP // post two.

a serial-memoir

Notifications were all blinking when I finally logged in.
I clicked to the ‘messages’ tab first.

You all right?
How was your day?
Are you there?
Do you not want to talk to me?

I sighed in ‘two-retail-jobs-and-an-infant . . . and zero friends’ and folded into the chair. The most recent message was a couple hours ago; the first was maybe twelve.

Hey!!
I am so sorry
I swear I wasn’t ignoring you
I was at work, blargh

Immediately, the ‘typing’ indicator popped up.

Oh, you hadn’t mentioned.

Sorry, yeah, I had work today.

I pulled up my writing program and typed in a few lines before the notification blinked again.

Are you getting my messages?

Yes

Sorry, this messenger
doesn’t work right on
my computer.
Do you have a different one?

Uh, I don’t know,
what one do you use?

Have you heard of SkUpe?

Yeah, but I don’t have it.

You need your phone number,
if you send it to me I can add you —

Typity-type in the browser; download pending.

No, I just need an email.

Oh, okay perfect.

After a few minutes coordination, some swearing, and favorable download speeds, I signed-in and hopped-on. Within moments a new chat window popped up.

Hey! Long time no talk 😀

Hi!!!! 😀
Is this working better?

Yeah, it is working a lot better.
So, how was your day?
What are you up to now,
hanging out with your boyfriend?

At the mention, I sat back and stared around our dark apartment. The table where we never ate together. The quiet in the corners.

No.
He went out
hanging with his car friends.

Like his friends are cars?

Hahaha 😀 , no.
They all go drive somewhere
and stand around
and talk about cars.

What do you do while he does that?
Besides talk to hot British guys 😀

Lol, well.
Usually I read.
Or write.
Or clean.

What do you write?

I clicked back to my writing program and frowned at the screen.
not much, I thought.

It is kinda random right now.

Can I read it?

You want to?

I’d love to read it.

Really?

Sure! 😀

I scoured some recently-disgorged typing: very ‘diary entry’, very ‘angry teen’.

Well?
Where’d you go?

<<<webcam request>>>

I stared at the screen. A raw kind of panic shot through my belly.

Uh, I don’t have a webcam.

Oh, sorry
I accidentally clicked it.

Okay.

Can I read what you’re writing?

No, nevermind
it’s all stupid.

It probably isn’t.

I gave it another scroll.
no, actually, it is, I thought.
I couldn’t bring myself to send any of it.

Please?
I bet it is great
the other stuff you posted is great.

I chewed on my lip as again my eyes flicked from paragraph to paragraph.
something he won’t think is stupid something he won’t think is stupid

Five seconds.

Ten.

Finally, I just copy-pasted half a page and dropped it into the chat. I quickly returned to the word document and typed OMG OMG OMG OMG over and over again until the notification ding’d.

Wow, this is really incredible.

Really?
I thought it was dumb . . .

Hey, how old are you again?

I think you act much older
much more mature.
I would have guessed 25.

Hahahaha, thank you 😛

You’re very welcome.

******

Okay, I should probably go to bed.

Really?
You don’t want to talk to me anymore?
😦

No! I’m just getting tired, is all.

Okay 😦
I guess I’ll just sit here
Alone

Hey!!! That’s not fair 😦
I mean, what about you?
We’ve been chatting for like
hours.

I’m not tired.
Do you have any writing anywhere else?
A blog somewhere?

Not really.
It’s just whatever I write and post.

Do you have any other pictures?

Just what’s on my page.
Actually . . .

I browsed through a friend’s profile and downloaded a few photos they had of me.

Actually?
Where’d you go?
Did you leave me again?

<<<webcam request>>>

Accidental click again?
lol
Here’s a pic of me and a friend
I’m on the left

You’re really beautiful.
You were blonde?
When was this?

A year or so ago.

What were you guys doing?

We were in dance together . . .

******

Okay, now I should go to bed for real.
I think the sun is coming up.
I hear literal birds

😦

Staaaaaahhhhhhp

Okay, fine.
Goodnight.
sweet dreams.

Good night!

You should take more pictures tomorrow 😀

I don’t have a camera.

You can take pictures with a webcam.

I don’t have a webcam!!!

Maybe you should get one 😛

GOODNIGHT
I AM TIRED

Goodnight.
Message me tomorrow!

Shut down.
Brush teeth.
Bed; shut down.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

B97 5HP — a serial memoir

Okay BYE everybody, goodnight! ❤ I typed into the chat. I watched as my line bumped up again and again from replies.

bcuz u suk >.<

goooodnight!

BAE, UNTIL TOMORROW!

she doesnt suck you homo

I closed the chat-screen with a smirk and then ate the final bite of my toast — white bread, generous butter. The ache in my knees begged that I finally unpretzel them, which is usually how I gauged when bedtime was, so I unfolded myself from the chair; my bare thighs made a thhwweet sound as they peeled slowly from the fake leather. Even in my periphs as I took my plate to the kitchen was it easy to see the bright pink welts I had caused myself.

Stiff and with a yawn, I checked the stove and doors and then back to the computer to shut it down, but . . . my message notification blinked.

I opened it.

Hey 😀 I saw you in the chat.
So you like to write?

I rested against the chair.

I do! Why do you ask?

I read through some of
the posts you put up.

Immediately mortified, I pull up my recent posts. They’re all flowery, journal-entry-esque poetic ramblings.

Oh, haha, they’re all stupid but thanks.

No, they’re not stupid
I think they’re great!

Thanks. The recent one is
about Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Do you like Shakespeare?

Duh.

I live like thirty minutes from
where he was born.

I blinked as my brain computed.

You live in England?

Before he could respond I clicked to his profile and scanned a few, very England-looking, pictures of building-lined roads or moody pastures. He replied by the time I clicked back.

Yeah.

That is so cool!

My body had re-pretzeled without realizing.

Have you been to his house?

Yeah, I have been.
Hey, can I tell you that I think
you are really pretty?

Oh, thanks.

I clicked back to his profile photo: blonde hair, blue eyes. Nice teeth.

You’re handsome.

Thank you.

So do you read Shakespeare?
Is it weird that he is so
famous and lived so close?

It is interesting.
I haven’t read anything
since school, though.

Yeah, me either.

I yawned.

Well, I am heading to bed.
What time is it even there?

Really early.

What are you doing up so early?

What are you
doing up so late? 😛

Lol, just couldn’t sleep.
Okay goodnight!

Can I talk to you later?

Sure!

I shut the computer down, padded along the carpeted hallway to lean in to the baby’s room — sound asleep — and then on to my bedroom where I crawled into bed beside my snoring boyfriend — whom hadn’t looked at me in days; talked to me in weeks; and had never read anything I ever wrote.

The space between us on the bed felt really far.
I wondered how far England was.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

My Father, the Mountain — Tea Party for 1

On and off since the day of my forging, way back in the 1980s, I have had pits occurring in my mind. Like one would push the tip of their finger into wet sand and leave behind a dimple, such occurred in the delicate folds of my brain each time my father held me beneath his thumb.

Over the years, through the tides of life, information pooled in each.

This one is a glimpse of a man, red-faced, and it smells like beer.

So is this one.

And this.

And that, and those over there. Also, those in the back.

I even have some coming in to be installed tomorrow, they’re going up on that pretty ridge over there.

New shipments every week.

If I get close, the ripples tell the story, and I remember: this one taught me to be ashamed.

This one: to be silent.

To lie.

To hide.

So, this has been occurring for quite some time, but 8 months ago I could suddenly see it. 8 months ago I could finally see the enormity of it. I realised how much it pervaded; how deep it went; how badly I had been betrayed by someone who was meant to protect.

And that’s not even the worst part.

8 months ago, at the ripe old age of being born in the 1900s, I realised that I deserved better and none of it was my fault.

Decades of things I had internalised, maggots I pulled from memories to drown in the shitty dimples that pervaded, worked themselves out like botflys.

And now I am left with all these lapping waves.

Ah, poetic digression. Back on-track:

This realisation, that it wasn’t me, might seem like a great thing — in the bigger picture, it of course is — but it sucks.

Should it suck for me?

Well, after devoting hours a day of background consciousness (involuntarily, might I add) to this question, I finally decided on the answer:

42 (jk, you’ll understand if you’re old or really cool, but not both)

The answer to ‘Should it be me?’ is: ‘Nah’.

It should be my dad.

And since I’m an 80s baby and we all know Millennials love drama (this is in no way true I made it up right now), what better way to be dramatic than some silly, salacious blog post no one will read? hashtag i’m just a girl.

Of course, I am going to be called ’emotional’ or told to ‘get go of the past’, but I have heard them before and am no longer phased. These crimes are not mine and I refuse to hold the shame and guilt of them.

They belong to my dad.

My dad, the man who married and took advantage of a mentally-ill, physically-disabled woman. Even though she was desperate for support, he gave her none but made four children with her and left all of the childrearing in her lap.

My dad, the man who, when cops were called because he was beating my mom, grabbed our dog and hid in the garage (not really that wild, I just wanted to point-out he was a coward)

My dad, the man who, when I would ask from the backseat — past where my little brothers were asleep — if he could slow down, would say. “You think you fucking know more about driving than me!” as he took another swig of beer.

My dad, the man who beat his children — his babies — with his fists. Who insisted his children did not need glasses, or regular medical care, or supervision, or safety. The man who seemed to enjoy our fear as he whipped off his belt.

The man who drove his children to random abandoned homes in cornfields and left his oldest child (me) in charge of the younger three, all aged 9>, while he disappeared to do ???

My dad, who called his daughter ‘a slut like her mom’ when his daughter (that’s me!) asked permission for a piercing at age 16.

My dad, the man who told his daughter, survivor of childhood sexual assault, that CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) was ‘not a big deal if it was teenagers’. The conversation would come about when his son was arrested for receipt, transport, and distribution of CSAM of children of prepubescent age. (Andrew Branigan, defendant in the Southern District of Iowa — sentencing is November 2025)

My dad, the man whose favorite joke used to be:
“Hey, you know that cartoon, The Jetsons? How it is set in the future? . . . ever see a black guy on the show? Man, the future is gonna be great.”

Forty years is a long time to hide sins of the father.

I’m over it.

Love, a Fatherless Daughter ❤

This collection of blog posts will include poetry, retellings, introspection, and train-of-thought additions until I decide I have got it all out and can breathe. I recently published a poetry book that coincides, ‘My Father, the Mountain’ — you can find more information and follow the blog at www.faunalewiswrites.com