Two Stories After Jackson Pollock, by Barbara Edler

Convergence, by Jackson Pollock (USA) 1952

Lost Soul
 
Bird poop splatters across my fractured windshield, a murky egg-coloured mix of visceral shit. Just like my life. My vision is blurred; the road is curvy. I curse aloud as I press the windshield wash, flick the wipers, but nothing’s doing. Gravel dust coats the car; rocks ping off my back wheels. I’ve taken a wrong turn and debate turning around, but I’ve been traveling this road for twenty miles. Seems futile to change directions now. I was certain this road would lead to Highway 101, but I’m clearly heading the wrong way. Worse, my phone’s dead and a storm’s brewing to the west. Ominous shadows encroach. I choke on the grit sifting through the window cracks and battered door panels. I press on the accelerator, pick up speed, move closer to seventy miles per hour now. I hope to see a farmstead ahead or life over the next hill when the wheels shimmy. The car spins on a sharp curve, I flip end over end, fly across a ditch, and flip end over end across a barren field as lightning bolts ignite the sky and a hailstorm explodes.

Sea Change, by Jackson Pollock (USA) 1947

u
Automaton
 
Cally watched her son playing basketball with his friends on the neighbour’s homemade court. His enthusiasm for sports was remarkable. She could hear his laughter through the kitchen window where she washed the breakfast dishes. If only he would work harder at his studies. She was worried he’d never get anywhere in life. Life was hard. His dad had disappeared months ago. She worried if he didn’t improve his grades, he’d slip through the cracks and end up a complete deadbeat.
​
Yesterday, she overheard two women speaking at the cafe as she cleared their dishes that a woman at the mall was offering a new medication to help children focus. She kept thinking about the conversation. Maybe a little medicine would be just the solution to push her son to do his very best. He was bright but distracted by friends and good times.

She grabbed her purse and headed towards the mall.

“Just put one teaspoon into his juice each morning. You will see a change in no time.”

Cally smiled, handed over the hundred dollar bill she’d been coveting for weeks and drove back home.

The following Saturday she noticed her son lying on the couch reading. She smiled to herself thinking, “Wow, what a change!”

“What are you reading,” she quietly asked.

“It’s for history,” he replied tonelessly.

Someone knocked on the door. “Hey, Joe, can you come out and play some ball.”

“Not today,” he said without a trace of an apology or smile and returned to the couch where he continued to read.

Cally looked at her unsmiling son who used to be full of boundless energy and loving hugs. Now he just stared at his book. 

What had she done?
 
Barbara Edler
 
Barbara Edler lives along the banks of the Mississippi River where she enjoys watching the birds and writing poetry and flash fiction. Edler writes to heal and is inspired by surrealistic and abstract painters such as Jackson Pollock. She’s a contributing author to the 2025 Routledge publication: Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas: Humanizing Formative Assessment for Grades 6-12.