Curriculum Vitae
by Ursula Villarreal-Moura
Her malaise has habits. On a regular basis, it subjects her to videos of people leaping from the North Tower inferno of the World Trade Center. That is despair, it whispers. Her computer suggests similar sites, advertisements for morgues, American flags at half-mast. On her sofa, she reclines into shapeless pillows, sick with doom.
When the helplessness ebbs, she ventures to the public library. In the parking lot, she stares at her reflection in car windows, retreating until her silhouette dwarfs itself. Her black hair begins to resemble an outdated wig, then an irregular inkblot, until she is only a jerked arc.
Author's Note
I wrote Curriculum Vitae after a frustrating lunch I had by myself at a picnic table. I was annoyed that I hadn't written anything new in months. When I went indoors, I started pinpointing and making tangible that sense of despair that routinely ensnarls me. In total, I've probably written four or five micro fictions in the past two years about different stages of despair. This is my first published one.
Ursula Villarreal-Moura was raised in San Antonio, Texas and earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Washington Square, New South, The Austin Review, The Weekly Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and CutBank, among others. She is at work on a novel-in-stories and tweets at @Ursulaofthebook.