Tag: Short Story

Announcement · English · Fiction

Women’s History Month, Bullies, and My Latest Publication

Dominique Margolis2 Comments

An acquaintance recently reached out to me, distraught. Her child kept getting bullied at school, so she had transferred the child to another school district. “But why should we be the ones who leave?” she asked, in tears, “instead of the bullies?” School officials had done what they could, at least, she explained, but the parents of the bullies didn’t seem to be genuinely sorry and even made excuses to explain away their children’s unacceptable behavior. “It’s like with Putin,” she continued, “nobody stopped him when he took Crimea, but now look at the horror that’s unfolding!”

We spoke of the discrepancies between the masks that people put in public and who they truly are once the masks come off. “I work in a very PR-savvy industry,” she confided. “They all wear blue and yellow, yet so many of them are real jerks!” I didn’t want to know names. “If you truly want to support Ukraine,” she continued, “then don’t just pretend to be a good person, be one.  Otherwise, you’re no better than the dictators and the bullies of the world!”

The theme of the destructiveness of deception is one that I’ve been working on through my writing. It is at play in my newest publication, “Looking for Mr. Goodbar Version 2022.” It is a 100-word story, and you can read it here Looking for Mr. Goodbar Version 2022, by Dominique Margolis – Friday Flash Fiction

“Looking for Mr. Goodbar” is the title of a book published by Judith Rossner in 1975 and adapted for film. The 1977 crime drama starred Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, and Tom Berenger. “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” is based on the true story of Roseann Quinn who was murdered in her late twenties by a man she brought home from a bar, and it served as a warning to women at the height of the sexual revolution in America.

In my 100-word story, however, the woman “disappeared” in the end. It is possible that the pregnant woman may still be alive. She may have left town to start life anew without Mr. Goodbar in it. Another possibility is that Mr. Goodbar’s sex addiction, compulsive dishonesty, and disregard for his pregnant wife’s needs may have killed her spirit.

In a future story, I will focus on the woman’s resurrection.

Announcement · English · Fiction

“Luz and Corazón” published by Pensive

Dominique Margolis2 Comments

My poetic short story, “Luz and Corazón,” is now available online in Issue 3 of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts.

Northeastern University’s Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service hosted a launch party at 7 p.m. ET. A trip from Los Angeles to Boston would not have been feasible, so I am grateful to have been able to attend via Zoom.

Co-editors Alexander Levering-Kern and Jayla Tillison introduced the event, and Alexander asked that we observe a moment of silence and that we send our love to our fellow beings across the planet. At that moment, I closed my eyes and traveled back in time to when I was sitting at one of the small wooden desks popular in 1990s university classrooms.

The air smelled like when professors were still using chalk on blackboards, and I was sitting, listening to, and observing Willard Johnson, my Religious Studies professor at San Diego State University. He was a type of human being that I had not yet encountered. He had a Ph.D. in Sanskrit, he meditated, he personally knew and invited as guest lecturers many Native American authors, he was himself a prolific author, and I could palpably sense that he truly saw me. His way of seeing me projected me onto a future in which I sensed that I could belong.

At the time, what Professor Johnson talked about in his classes was highly mysterious to me. My English skills still left much to be desired, and the subject matters he was introducing me to were completely foreign to a French girl educated in France where religious studies was not an academic discipline. And yet, by the time I signed up for my first class with Professor Johnson, I had already undergone two near-death experiences, and I was about to drop out of an American University system that, just like the French university system, had provided no answers to my need to understand why I had been born and what I was supposed to do with my life.

Even though Religious Studies was not my major, Professor Johnson became my thesis advisor. More than that, he left a lifelong imprint on my development as a human being. His book Riding the Ox Home: A History of Meditation from Shamanism to Science, is the book I would take with me on a deserted island. How I wish that Professor Johnson were still alive today!

I dedicate “Luz and Corazón” to him.