Let's talk about plot for a minute. In every good story (notice, I said "good" story) there is a struggle of some kind. It can vary widely, from Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, where he climbs Mt. Everest, to a new favorite of mine, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, where the main characters are also on oxygen, but because they're fighting cancer.
So, the prompt for this weeks is:
Do something hard ... or rather, make your main character do something hard. :-)
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The park bench had always been too hard, and just the wrong height for my legs. It was the kind of thing you blow off when you're in love, something that doesn't really matter in the throes of early romance. You can't ignore it indefinitely, though.
First, I would press my toes into the ground, crossing my legs at my ankles and pushing my legs together. My toes didn't like to bend like that, so I would try to scoot myself backwards on the bench, but it was too short, and I couldn't get back far enough. A too-tall bench with a too-thin seat. And that doesn't even address the issue of the splinters.
The bench was a good analogy for our relationship, actually. He was a nice enough guy, mostly normal, better than average looks. Then it seemed he was calling me a little too often. I hated the way he ordered for me at restaurants. It wasn't overtly grating. He didn't ever call me before 8am or after 11pm, and he did ask what I wanted before passing along the information to the waiter ... but things added up, and it grated.
He strode down the walkway, dropped down on the bench next to me, and kissed my cheek. "Hey sweetheart!"
Did I mention I hated when he called me sweetheart? Any other girl may have loved it, but that creepy school janitor had always called me that, and it gave me the willies.
I stood up. I'd had enough of that bench and enough of him, and I told him so. I didn't drag it out, I didn't even bother to try and convince him that it was me and not him - it really was him. I just told him I was ready to move on, and he ought to delete my number from his cell phone. Then and there, I pulled up fb and changed my relationship status. Then I left him behind, sitting on the bench with his head in his hands.
I almost felt sorry for him. That bench was awful uncomfortable.
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ReplyDeleteOh, this looks like it has an interesting world!
DeleteShe didn’t know how she would do it.
ReplyDeleteShe was still weak. Weak from the long, weary walk from Illinois to Iowa; from breathing in the dust of the journey as she stumbled along, growing heavier each day with the child who was to be born without a home. And she was weak from the frightening, lonely hours filled with pain as her child had struggled to come into the world; while she longed for Ephram’s strong hands to hold hers and to hear his voice, telling her all would be well. But Ephram was gone; called to sail away on a ship to England so that he could preach to the people there. He’d left before the frenzied mob had forced them all to abandon their beautiful city and begin their journey, as best they could, with hardly more than the clothing on their backs on a freezing February day.
Anna shivered and pulled her tattered shawl more closely about her. The early April wind tore at her soul. It was still so cold! How could she leave him? She barely registered the soft touch of a hand on her shoulder.
“Sister, it’s time. We must go,” a soft voice murmured. Anna heard the slight tremor in the voice of the woman who spoke. It was soft-spoken, kind Sister Humphreys, who had run nearly five miles to the nearby town to fetch a doctor. All she had been able to find was the sour, sullen woman with stone-grey hair and chips of ice in her eyes, who came resentfully to the Mormon encampment to assist with a difficult labor.
Blood. Blood and terror and pain; and the hard countenance of the woman who helped birth her child. Anna couldn’t recall much. Last night was no more than a timeless mixture of images and sensations. There were hours of frightening pain, and the fruitless pushing, but finally, mercifully, a sudden tearing; excruciating but brief. Then the tiny form was placed in her arms. Gratefully, Anna had sunk down, cradling him close. She recalled hearing a single whimper, the merest of sounds, then, nothing more from the child.
“How you gonna pay me?” the grey woman had muttered. Anna had looked up in shock, still reeling with pain and fear, and the wonder of giving birth to her first child.
Sister Humphreys had pled, as she wrapped the quilt about Anna and her son, that they had nothing, but they would find something. Somehow, they would repay her. “Only let me go ask the others,” Sister Humphreys had said.
“I’ll take that quilt,” the woman retorted, whisking it away from Anna and her son even as she spoke the words.
“No,” Anna had breathed.
“It don’t matter, no how,” the woman had said as she’d climbed down from the bed of the wagon, clutching the quilt in her arms. “You and that brat will both be dead by morning.” And then, she was gone.
Anna had wept. The quilt, a red and white Bethlehem star pattern, was her only link to her former life. Her mother’s wedding gift. At night, alone in the cold wagon, she ran her hands along the soft fabric and felt her mother’s love in every tiny stitch. And now, it was gone.
And, it was all she had to protect herself and her child from the cold.
Sister Humphreys had found something to cover her and wrap the baby in. She always found a way to help. But the cruel woman’s prediction came true; at least in part. The baby didn’t survive the night.
“Anna?” Sister Humphreys said once more.
"One step," Anna murmured to herself. Begin with one step. She trembled all over. Grief, fatigue and the loss of blood were taking their toll. But she would do it.
“I’m ready,” Anna whispered. Taking one more look at the tiny grave at her feet, she dropped a twig that sprouted a few green leaves. It was all she could find. Her heart twisted inside her. Such a poor memorial for her son.
Then, she turned her back. "Until we meet again", she breathed the words out into the cold air; a promise to her child. And she walked away.
Oh Rebecca, you made me cry! I love the quilt and the mean old midwife.
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