Right now...

Right now, I could cry...
I'm shaking inside and I can't even...
I just can't...

6 Word Story

Leading on from the last entry.

I once wrote a 6 word story in the style of Hemingway. The story I came up with was ambiguous and had a number of responses from a number of people with different interpretations.My interpretation was based on an incident from my own life. This is how it went.

"She's beautiful babe, now say goodbye."

Twitterati

Challenge 6 is to write a story in 140 characters. I thought of the late, great Ernest Hemingway's six word story which he once deemed his best work... "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." It's beautiful and poignant. I'm far from Hemingway, but here's a shot! :)

Peeking through tightly squeezed eyes. The result was in. Nothing would ever be the same again. Smiling, she picked up her phone. “Postive!”

The Chair

It’s just a chair. Just an old chair on top of a skip. It’s an old fashioned wing back chair in heavy brown and gold brocade. Threadbare where the head of the owner would once have rested. Its wooden legs are faded and scratched, the brass studs holding the material onto the frame dulled and pale. The cushion displaying none of the bounce that it had possessed when it was new. Just an old chair.

It’s just an old chair, but, when it was new, it was a wedding gift. A gift beyond the dreams of Ray and Alice for setting up their new home. It took pride of place near their window where Ray could sit when he came home from work, could watch the world go by on a Sunday morning. Where he could sit and listen to the wireless on an evening and relax. The chair that he was sat in when the second World War was declared.

It was the chair he sat in when he opened his call up papers and where Alice sat at his feet and cried with her head on his knee, stroking her wavy black hair. Reassuring her of his return to be able to see the baby that was due in barely two and a half months. The chair which was the only place Alice could really get comfortable in her last months of pregnancy.

It was the chair that his son had first pulled himself up onto in preparation to take his first faltering steps, and the chair in which his daughter ended up being born on. It was the mainstay of the dens that his children had built and hid in during their childhood. It was the chair in which his daughter, Olive, had gone into labour with his first grandchild.

It was the chair in which Ray had sat and cried when they’d found out Alice was dying. The cancer ravaging her body quicker than the doctors could keep up with. And the chair he sat and cried in again on the day she died cradled in his arms on their 53^rd wedding anniversary.

It was the chair in which he had lived, and the chair in which he had cradled every one of his children, and grand children and great grand children. It was a chair that had given him great joy.

It was the chair in which he’d died. On a Sunday morning watching the world go by, he’d closed his eyes and slipped away, ready and smiling.

It is just an old chair on top of a skip.

Now or never...?

He hesitated briefly, raised his hand to the small scar on his face in front of his ear and traced it unconsciously with the tip of his finger. A remnant of an argument with an errant surf board. It was barely noticeable to anyone but him; still it was a reassurance, a habit now.

He took a pace forward, not a pace, maybe more of a step, pace made it sound like it was purposeful. There was nothing purposeful about his actions right now. He was filled with doubt. With euphoria. He was as afraid as he was excited. A walking oxymoron. He’d never been decisive. Always ‘happy to go with the flow’, when actually, he was just worried he’d say or do the wrong thing. Never confident in his opinions or actions but never showing it. At least if he was going along with the crowd, he couldn’t get things wrong. Although he often seemed to manage to anyway, or so he’d been told.

His pale grey shirt collar chafed at his freshly shaved neck. He looked as good as he possibly could, the sharp, dark grey suit made especially for his excessively muscular physique. As his Mum would say, “you really scrub up well sweetheart.” He heard her little sing song voice in his head. The memory made him smile. He knew that the similarities to his Mum were the things that made him like Lauren in the first place. The same as he knew it was her differences to his Mum that made him love her now.

She was the first, maybe only, person that had been able to see past the dumb, surf bum façade that everyone else saw. The only person to be able to see any level of intelligence in his indigo eyes. The first person who’d been able to show him what love was. He was very aware that his thoughts right now, if they’d been voiced to his friends, would be met with a barrage of abuse. He also knew that he wouldn’t care, and would tell them if they’d been here.

He reached out and ran his finger over the 1 carat, brilliant solitaire set in the tiny platinum band. As much a reassurance to him as the scar it traced just a minute before. He looked up, smoothed his hair, picked up the box with the ring in it and snapped it shut in a single move. He’d decided. He was going to ask her…

It was now or never.

Who's in the mirror?

His reflection in the cracked mirror stares back at him,


Crying and hurt, he knows pain. Why can’t they see who he really is?


He has loved and still loves, he laughs. Just not always out loud.


The cracked reflection keeps staring.




Her reflection in the cracked mirror stares back at her,


Crying and hurt, she knows pain. Why can’t he see who she really is?


She has loved, but can love no more, she cries. Just not always out loud.


The bruised reflection keeps staring.




The cracked reflection shows him, what he is, who he is.


The grazed hands show him what he’s done.  He can see so clearly now.


He has loved and knows he’s lost. He can’t laugh now.


The cracked reflection crumbles.




The bruised reflection hides her, what she is, who she is.


Her grazed cheeks show her what he’s done. She can see so clearly now.


She has loved, and now she’s free. She can laugh now.


The bruised reflection won’t hide her forever.

Freedom

So, week 4 of the writing challenge. Here it is. It could do with some work and a rewrite or twenty, but I wanted to keep it a bit lighter and more upbeat than I've written for the other challenges. I also wanted to use a different narrative and so I chose first person. I'm not sure that I've succeeded in doing that well but I have tried.  I really wanted to keep writing this so I think I'm going to use it for the basis of something in the future. Who knows :)


It’s cold, it’s murky and I’m on my own. The rain is falling and the sky is grey. I can honestly say I’ve never been happier. 


It’s the kind of rain that soaks you to your skin within seconds. The kind of rain that makes you feel cleansed, even if it does make your mascara run;  and it is running, like two rivulets swirling down each cheek, clogging my vision slightly. I don’t care, I’m still smiling, in fact, I keep breaking into, what can only be described as, girly giggly fits. So very out of character for me, but not anymore. I feel as light as if I’d lost half my body weight. I have a childish urge to jump into the ever expanding puddles around my feet. So I do it. There’s no one there to see me do it, and even if there was, well, so what? It’s not their feet I’m soaking. Not their shoes I’m ruining. That thought sobers me for a second. I’m ruining a rather lovely and rather expensive pair of brown leather boots. Then I splodge again. Let them be ruined. I can buy some more.
Today has become the proverbial ‘first day of the rest of my life’.  I could grab everything with both hands. I could do as I pleased without fear of retribution. I had planned so long for this day. I’d written lists of what I would do. Where I wanted to go. What I wanted to see. There was just too much to fit in, but fit it in I would. No matter how hard it was. In my head I’m already making alterations to the lists. This walk definitely wasn’t in it. I’d imagined that I would be calmer, even morose. I hadn’t expected this desire to scream and shout and run around, or the excitement. I hadn’t imagined the excitement! Out of the corner of my eye I can see the top of a swing. I mentally added a new item to the “to do” list and head for the play area. It’s usual noise replaced by the rushing sound of the rain past my ears and I run towards the empty swings. I jump up onto the seat and launch myself into the sky. Swinging myl egs backwards and forwards as hard as I can manage.
I hang my head as far back as I can and feel my hair brush against the floor as I surge upwards again and again. I know it’s a tangled mess, but, just like the mascara, I don’t care. I am free! With my head hung backwards I can really stare at the sky. The grey clouds merge, so many different shades of the same colour. I’ve never noticed how beautiful grey is before. How subtle tinges of white and black can create such dramatic effects with it. And then I see lightening. I hear thunder. I genuinely believe this day can’t get any better. The brightest, whitest light I can imagine cracks open the clouds that I’m staring at and I am in awe. I feel the depth of the thunder like a lion’s roar and I’m in awe. I slow my swing to a stop to be able to really watch the natural spectacle unfold before my eyes. The world is putting on a show just for me.
Sitting up, I wipe the trails of mascara from my face so that my eyes are clear. Another plan. I want to see a tropical storm. And at that moment I notice I am not alone. I feel a frisson of fear. I am alone in a park. No one within shouting distance. He smiles and the fear dissipates. There’s something in his face that I recognise. It looks very similar to the freedom I can feel on my face. The childish glee conveyed in a simple upturn of his mouth. I tentatively return the upturned mouth. I see a piece of paper in his hand. A carbon copy of mine but with different names. Then I understand. 


Decree Absolute.