The Laughing Place
by Tara L. Masih
You need a place like this to go to, I tell her, like my sister and I had when we were young. It's called the Laughing Place. You cannot be in that place without laughing. No matter what is going on in your world, in that space, only laughter is allowed. You start in the spring, sowing morning glory seeds in a circle around the sticks you've erected to form a teepee. Part of the beauty is in not knowing what color the flowers will be-blue or pink or white, sometimes all three colors in one mad hybrid. As the shoots begin to grow under your care, you guide the new tendrils—thin, trusting little fingers that gradually curl into a baby's fist around each stake—till the vines climb, hand upon hand, to reach the top. By summer, you have a tent of morning glories. You leave space for a door so you can enter in the morning, when the flowers are open to the sun, and everything that has been dormant in the winter, under your skin, keeping you from eating, making you quake, making your words stab, keeping you from tipping into the next place, has to be laughed away. You laugh your hard life into the blue and pink and white funnels, laugh with the vibrations of bees' wings underscoring your tragic symphony.
Tara L. Masih received an MA in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. She has published fiction, poetry, and essays in numerous anthologies and literary magazines (such as Confrontation, Hayden's Ferry Review, Natural Bridge, New Millennium Writings, Red River Review, and The Caribbean Writer), and her essays have been read on NPR. Two limited edition illustrated chapbooks featuring her flash fiction have been published by The Feral Press (Oyster Bay, NY: 2006). Awards for her work include first place in The Ledge Magazine's fiction contest, second place in Jane's Stories Flash Fiction contest, a finalist fiction grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Web nomination. She judges the intercultural essay prize for the annual Soul-Making Literary Contest, and is editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (Rose Metal Press, 2009). www.taramasih.com