The Bath

Kyle Cupp

Kyle Cupp is a former regular here at Ordinary Times who lives in a small rural town about two hours southwest of Portland, Oregon with his wife, kids, and dog. He enjoys studying and writing about the world of employment, which is good because that's his job. You can find him on Twitter.

Related Post Roulette

25 Responses

  1. Burt Likko says:

    Maximum respect, Kyle. You packed a lot of story into this.

    I find the sensuality remarkable, particularly for an elegy.

    Props.Report

  2. North says:

    I was engrossed. Very elegantly written.Report

  3. Teri says:

    Right to the end I was hoping she would join him, or phone. Good story, short, emotive and made me tear up.

    Now I am going to call my widowed father and just chat, if he is home from his daily 5 mile walk. At 80 he keeps busy.Report

  4. Tod Kelly says:

    Nicely done, Kyle. Your story has a poet’s sparseness, communicating so much more than the sum of its words.Report

  5. RichardS says:

    Powerful stuff!Report

  6. Miss Mary says:

    I read the story this morning when I woke up, but I had to come back and tell you that I keep thinking about it. Nicely done, sir.Report

  7. Kyle Cupp says:

    Thank you everyone for reading and giving feedback! I’m glad we’ve got the Ordinary Tales blog set-up here because I really enjoy this kind of writing. I’ll try for something more cheerful next time.Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to Kyle Cupp says:

      As I’ve written before, I find this sort of writing to cause me much greater nervousness and fear. By writing (serious) fiction, I feel as though I open up a window into a more private, emotional part of myself than I do when I write about a non-fiction subject. Which is why I’m all the more impressed with the sheer nerve it must have taken you to publish that book, entirely aside from admiring the tenacity I know that it took to get it all out and into words in the first place.Report

  8. Glyph says:

    This is pretty great Kyle.

    I worry sometimes that life is just an ever-accumulating weight of regrets; and one day that weight just becomes too much for you to carry any further, and you set that weight down.

    If that sounds depressing, well, you started it, buddy!Report

    • dhex in reply to Glyph says:

      don’t forget the suffering and decay of the body as you slowly rot!Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to dhex says:

        How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?Report

      • Glyph in reply to dhex says:

        Oh, I won’t!

        A little over a week ago I watched a friend die. It was pretty unexpected. He was two years older than me. His sister (also an old friend) has no immediate family left, having lost her father six months ago.

        Also last week, another good friend’s mother missed a stairstep and broke her fibula in one leg, and fractured her ankle on the other.

        Did she drive herself to the hospital on two broken legs, because she “didn’t want to bother anyone”? Yes, yes she did.

        Another good friend just had a relationship flame out due to the other partner’s infidelities (plural) in a spectacular, highly painful and public way that would be hilarious, if it were a movie, and not someone’s real life.

        This is going to be a crap Christmas for a lot of people.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to dhex says:

        Did she drive herself to the hospital on two broken legs, because she “didn’t want to bother anyone”? Yes, yes she did.

        Christamighty, the shit people do. I’m mixed between being really angry at her (I don’t even know her!) and holding her in the highest esteem.

        Well, she made it, so I guess she was right. No need to bother anyone. Just a flesh wound.Report

      • Chris in reply to dhex says:

        Ugh, I am sorry to hear about your friend, and his poor sister.

        “We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then the other for his prey.”Report

      • Glyph in reply to dhex says:

        He was a curmudgeon, and one of the smartest, funniest people I’ve ever met (and so is she). We all used to work in the mall together, whiling away the hours making ridiculous employee name tags for ourselves (like “Guy Gadbois”, a Clouseau alias), and creating long lists of prospective original bandnames (such as “Eric Plaid & the Laxative Task Force”) or television show pitches (Monkeytowne, with an e).Report

      • Chris in reply to dhex says:

        Well, I’m glad you have wonderful memories.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Glyph says:

      and one day that weight just becomes too much for you to carry any further, and you set that weight down.

      If that sounds depressing…

      No, it doesn’t. Unless you think Enlightenment is depressing.Report

  9. Mike Schilling says:

    That was amazing.Report

  10. Rod says:

    Powerful. Deeply moving. Makes me jealous of real writers like yourself.

    Keep em coming.Report

  11. Rob says:

    Exquisite, Kyle. I know that guy. I shave his neck, three times a week.Report