Cynthia (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cynthia_lynthia) wrote,@ 2005-01-06 15:37:00 |
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Freewrite
Here's the question: do I expand it or does it end itself well enough as is?
The italicized line is the prompt, the rest is my own.
Mama said I was thenceforth to be her nephew, and to call her Aunt Dora. Only she didn't quite say it like that. Didn't say it at all, really, only wrote it on a pad next to her bed in funny, spidery handwriting that belied all the years she'd spent practicing penmanship before her accident. It took me a while to decipher what the message said, and then a longer while to realize what it meant, as I sat in my chair in the dark room and strained my eyes by the light of the single bulb left burning in the ceiling.
I stood up, not understanding, and took my mama's hand in mine. Her hand was cold and papery, lined with eerie green veins, dotted with freckles that should have spoken of the sun and the open sky but only called to mind the steady blip of a heart monitor.
Her lips moved. Her eyes moved, too, though she didn't see me - she was looking into the wall, like always, staring beyond it into a past that only she could see.
"Mama?"
She made no reply, didn't even seem to hear me. She heard instead the sighing of wind through the apple trees, maybe, here where there were none - or the call of loons - or the lapping of lakewater on a sandy shore. I sighed unhappily and listened to my own noises: the hum of the miniature refrigerator that had come out of my last paycheck to chill precious medicines by her bedside, the buzz of a fly that had mistaken the bedroom for a way to the sky.
A car rumbled over the gravel in the driveway and coughed to a stop. I let Mama's hand drop, went to meet Elaine, who brought groceries and medicine the doctor had prescribed to help Mama's eyes. They were going bad, glazing over with a silver film of blindness and memories, and I was afraid that before long she would be permanently blind.
"How is she?" Elaine asked as she piled paper bags onto the kitchen counter and slapped at the intruding fly, which had followed me from the bedroom.
"She doesn't know who I am anymore," I said, tossing apples into the crisper of the large refrigerator with all the violence I would have liked to expend on my mother's attacker. "She thinks she's my Aunt Dora. I never had an Aunt Dora." The last apple was rotten inside; it hit the side of the crisper and exploded into a dozen mushy pieces.
"I'm sorry," said Elaine. "I don't know what else to say."
"Don't say anything." I cleaned up the apple with a wet napkin Elaine handed me, dropping the sodden mess into the wastebin with a dull thud when I had finished. "Words won't fix anything. They never do."
Here's the question: do I expand it or does it end itself well enough as is?
The italicized line is the prompt, the rest is my own.
Mama said I was thenceforth to be her nephew, and to call her Aunt Dora. Only she didn't quite say it like that. Didn't say it at all, really, only wrote it on a pad next to her bed in funny, spidery handwriting that belied all the years she'd spent practicing penmanship before her accident. It took me a while to decipher what the message said, and then a longer while to realize what it meant, as I sat in my chair in the dark room and strained my eyes by the light of the single bulb left burning in the ceiling.
I stood up, not understanding, and took my mama's hand in mine. Her hand was cold and papery, lined with eerie green veins, dotted with freckles that should have spoken of the sun and the open sky but only called to mind the steady blip of a heart monitor.
Her lips moved. Her eyes moved, too, though she didn't see me - she was looking into the wall, like always, staring beyond it into a past that only she could see.
"Mama?"
She made no reply, didn't even seem to hear me. She heard instead the sighing of wind through the apple trees, maybe, here where there were none - or the call of loons - or the lapping of lakewater on a sandy shore. I sighed unhappily and listened to my own noises: the hum of the miniature refrigerator that had come out of my last paycheck to chill precious medicines by her bedside, the buzz of a fly that had mistaken the bedroom for a way to the sky.
A car rumbled over the gravel in the driveway and coughed to a stop. I let Mama's hand drop, went to meet Elaine, who brought groceries and medicine the doctor had prescribed to help Mama's eyes. They were going bad, glazing over with a silver film of blindness and memories, and I was afraid that before long she would be permanently blind.
"How is she?" Elaine asked as she piled paper bags onto the kitchen counter and slapped at the intruding fly, which had followed me from the bedroom.
"She doesn't know who I am anymore," I said, tossing apples into the crisper of the large refrigerator with all the violence I would have liked to expend on my mother's attacker. "She thinks she's my Aunt Dora. I never had an Aunt Dora." The last apple was rotten inside; it hit the side of the crisper and exploded into a dozen mushy pieces.
"I'm sorry," said Elaine. "I don't know what else to say."
"Don't say anything." I cleaned up the apple with a wet napkin Elaine handed me, dropping the sodden mess into the wastebin with a dull thud when I had finished. "Words won't fix anything. They never do."
