by Donna Miscolta
Adela adjusted the brightness on her TV screen, dimming the picture until the whites turned to gray and the blues ran to black. Then she turned her head sideways, as if to provide the couple some privacy — a needless but civil concession. Still, Adela looked, stealing glances at their faces, their flared nostrils and wild eyebrows, their mouths pulled back like stretched rubber bands releasing again and again a noisy rush of complaints. Infidelity. Hopelessness. Abandonment. Psoriasis, hair loss, bunions. Adela shook her head, clucked softly in commiseration. Soon though, the shouts and insults, which grew in decibel but not variety, began to bore even Adela, who monitored the TV talk shows out of a sense of obligation, believing that the beam from her antenna that registered her channel choice with the Nielsen ratings somehow offered support to the aggrieved, the distraught, the fearful, the angry, the clandestinely lonely who aired their troubles to smooth-toned, large-gesturing talk show hosts and their audiences of ordinary people.
Continue reading Friday Fiction: Adela Reflected
