Molly Prentiss

PART THREE IN UNION SQUARE

I was thinking about Part Three of the book and how maybe it should take place in Union Square, and you could think of Union Square as New York (taxis) or as San Francisco (fog) and it would be really early in the morning, like before work, and everybody would be looking fresh like how you look when you get ready for work but by the end of the day you look disheveled, and the girl is reading a book (poems) and drinking a coffee (iced) and she could be anywhere, on a boat even, the third section of the book is blowing her hair back.

Or I was thinking Part Three might be really good if it involved two people meeting up for drinks, at that time of the day when two people are always meeting up for drinks, after work and the light's still good, and because there are drinks (pilsners) and they are outside (cherry blossoms) the two people can be really real with each other, and they ask each other: Why did we never work out? And they tell each other: Because we never would have worked out. And then a cherry blossom falls into his hair.

I was thinking that in Part Three of the book there could be these characters who are always writing to each other like they never stop writing and they write from their iPhones from Union Square and if they are in New York they're writing about New York and if they're in San Francisco they're writing about how the clouds make them feel and the cool thing is that because of the time difference and because one of them writes late at night and the other writes early in the morning they always wake up to a story, sent by iPhone from the other Union Square.

Maybe in Part Three in Union Square there should be a bookstore that's not open yet and all the people that work in the bookstore are getting the books ready and maybe the girl should look up from her book (poems) and start thinking: I wish that was my job, to get there early and set up the books, smooth them with my hands, press down on them, cherish the half hour before the doors open, when people will be wanting to know what they're about.

I was thinking that in Part Three of the book the girl could be in Forever 21 in Union Square and thinking how she is not 21 anymore, will never be 21 again, has never been 21 before.

I was thinking about Part Three of the book and how maybe there shouldn't be a Part Three because Part Three always has falling action and we never had any rising action or middle action or any action at all in the first place.

But if there were a Part Three it would have a cold wind on a warm day but it's the kind of day where the sun never comes out from the smog. And let's say someone screams HEY BEAUTIFUL HOW YOU DOING at the girl and a little part of her grows cold inside and she misses something for a second but she doesn't know what and she wonders about missing something that you never had in the first place. And then suddenly it starts raining, raining really hard, and there's a thunderstorm, right there in Union Square, right there in Part Three of the book.

Molly Prentiss writes fiction, poems, and the occasional essay. Her work can be found in Hobart, Fourteen Hills, HTMLGiant, Mud Luscious, La Petite Zine, and >kill author among others. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and at the Blue Mountain Center and received her MFA from the California College of the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.