I discovered this gem in my Mslexia (Dec/Jan/Feb 2020/21) and wanted to share it. Belinda has been kind enough to allow me to do this, she has also given some insight into her writing process.

Dog by Belinda Rimmer

He’d hung a ‘No Entry’ sign on the door and added a proviso: ‘Dog in Mourning’. They were both in mourning, him and Dog. But if you could make a mountain out of grief, Dog’s would be higher.

            The vet had raised his eyebrows when Dan had told him, ‘She’ll only sleep if I hold her, and under the sheets, it has to be under the sheets.

            Maybe he was one of those rare types: a vet who didn’t like dogs. He’d said, and he’d said it sharply, ‘A dog doesn’t need holding, all a dog needs is a basket’.

            What Dan didn’t say was that at night Dog called out:’Marie. Marie.’

            The vet had wished them both well and charged a week’s rent.

            That night Dan lay beside Dog and they both cried, but Dog cried louder; and they both thought about Marie, but Dog thought about her the most; and they both had nightmares, but Dog’s were rockier, steeper to climb, more treacherous.

            Dan fetched Marie’s red cardigan from the wardrobe, which seemed to bring Dog some comfort. He brought all Marie’s old clothes and heaped them on the bed, on top of Dog. Dog stopped howling. But Dan still held him tight, and together they called her name, again and again, as if Marie were in the room next door and had never gone away.

This work was originally published in Mslexia Magazine. www.mslexia.co.uk

Belinda Rimmer speaks about her writing process

These days, I spend most of my time writing. Poetry is my main passion, but I am increasingly drawn to flash fiction. I find it a very hard thing to do, to create a story in so few words. I am learning as I go along, reading and taking workshops (Meg Pokrass is a wonderful teacher). I have many more poems published, but last year one of my flash fictions made it into best microfiction 2019, and the TSS Publishing list for Best British and Irish Flash Fiction 2018-2019, which inspired me to continue submitting. 

I need silence to write and often cocoon myself in a rickety gazebo, away from distractions. In winter, I write in my study at an old pine desk. Solitude is necessary, but I also need to interact with other writers. I have taken several courses with the Poetry School and belong to a poetry workshop group. My career has been varied: psychiatric nurse, school counsellor, dance development officer, arts practitioner and part time lecturer – work that has involved communicating with and attempting to understand people. I take the same approach with my writing, trying to understand my characters, their motivations, loves, insecurities. Even when writing about my own life, I try to discover something new and unexpected. Curiosity or a need to make sense of the world is a driving force.

I scribble in endless notebooks. These notes are quite often illegible, which I quite like. I then try to pick out lines that resonate, or words, or look for patterns, or whole sentences. I don’t try to make too much sense at this point. I like to surprise myself with where my writing takes me. I can always add layers of meaning afterwards. Later drafts are written on a laptop. My approach doesn’t vary much between poetry and flash fiction, although I do feel a little freer when writing flash. Ideas come from so many different sources: photographs, art, memory, inspirational people and their lives, nature. My writing can also be driven by emotion. Not being able to verbalise something leads me to pen and paper.

‘Dog’

I wondered what it would be like if the grief of a man and his dog became entwined, so it was almost impossible to know where one began and the other ended. What if a dog came to stand in for something or someone missing. In my story the characters of Dog and Marie become entwined, leaving space for readers to find their own points of understanding too.

Publications.

In 2018, I was joint winner of the Indigo-First Pamphlet Competition, with my pamphlet, Touching Sharks in Monaco (published by Indigo Dreams, Spring 2019) which was about childhood and personal relationships: memory and its distortions. www.belindarimmer.com/pamphlet

During the summer, I completed a 12 poem chapbook called, How To Be Silent, inspired by the life and work of the American writer Tillie Olsen. I first encountered her work many years ago as part of my PhD research. This is to be published in 2021 by dancing girl press. Twitter: @belrimmer