NaNoWriMo Day Ten: Some More of the Story.

 Hey Y'all, 

Here you go. I don't think that I will finish it today. It is turning out to be a longer story than I thought. 

heidi

How He Died (continued)

A woman walked over to me and asked me to come with her. She lead me to a quiet part of the hospital and put me in a hospital room by myself.  She said they would come and get me when it would be okay. So I sat and I waited...and waited...and waited. All I could do was sit. I don't remember even thinking. At some point, I walked to the door and stood there. I was like the hallway, empty. Eventually, someone walked by. I asked the person, maybe a woman, about Darrell. She said that someone would get back with me. So I waited some more. It's all a big blank now. I could have been very active during this time; I just don't know. I don't think I waited as long this time. At some point someone did come get me. 

Darrell had been put on a ventilator. He wasn't breathing on his own. He needed more care than they could give him. His kidneys had shut down and he needed dialysis. They were arranging to send him to a hospital that was actually closer to our house. I was wearing a thin blouse and a sweater, and, at some point, the back of my blouse had ripped, like, all the way up. I needed to go change. they said I should have time to go by the house and get to the other hospital.

I went home. It was dark and quiet. 

I'll write more later.

heidi

written 11/10/22

NaNoWriMo Day Seven: My Computer Battery Died and It Took a Minute to Charge It.

 Hey Y'all, 

So, I still haven't written a short story. This is more a journaling exercise. I am writing before I have to go to work. I don't want to go. I am closing the store tonight and I don't like doing that.  

Google says that today is Marie Curie's birthday. Happy birthday Marie!

Okay. so here is the beginning of a story I don't want to tell, but needs to come out. I'll try to finish it tonight after work, but it may be tomorrow. 

How He Died

My husband was very sick. I asked him to go to the doctor and he said that he had a whole bunch of appointments in a little over a week and if he still felt bad, he would ask them about it. He complained of his back hurting. he lost his appetite, and he was sleeping a lot. On Monday, I told him that if he still felt bad on Tuesday, then we were going to the hospital. Tuesday came and went and he still felt bad. And I didn't take him. Why didn't I take him? The reasons seem so stupid now. Then it was Thursday. I had an appointment with my therapist and I asked him to go with me. He felt so bad, but he went anyway. My therapist was right down the street from the hospital. I discussed with her what was the best way to get him to go and she said to just take him, When we were done, that's what I did. 

He was pissed. I was afraid that he had dehydrated himself, which was extra concerning because he had Congestive Heart Failure and wasn't able to just take fluids. It had to be done very slowly.  We waited in the lobby for the triage nurse to call us back. Although he was mad, he never really fought going that much. Why didn't I take him on Tuesday? When the triage nurse called his name, I went with him.  The triage nurse was also a man. I explained how I thought he might be dehydrated while the nurse took his blood pressure. Except, his blood pressure was so low, that it wouldn't register on the machine. They hurried him to a room and some things happened and I don't remember what they were.  What I do remember next was that they placed him under this blow up blanket that was heated and he hated it. He kept taking it off , complaining that he was hot. At some point a doctor came in and yelled at me because the blanket was off. She said he had to keep it on. Then, we were alone again. I don't remember talking to him. I think I must have said something about him needing to keep the blanket on and him not liking it. but I don't remember.  The he said "Heidi, help me! Help me!" and he passed out. 

He never really said my name that much. The whole time I knew him, he was making up nicknames for me. He liked to do that, but I always wanted him to say my name more often. I liked the way it sounded coming from his mouth. But not that night. I was by the side of his bed where he had rolled over and he was quiet. I said "Darrell, Darrell?" and then I laughed. I fucking laughed. I do that sometimes when I am nervous, scared, or embarrassed. Why hadn't I taken him to the hospital on Tuesday? Then, the room filed up with people. I walked over and sat down, hoping they wouldn't notice me. I knew that if they noticed me, then I would have to leave. 

heidi

started 11/7/22

word count: 627

The Sunday Whirl Submission: From That Moment On

The Sunday Whirl-Wordle 98

From That Moment On

She is gone. Her body has stopped, following her heart, which was carried away weeks ago in tiny hands. She has found peace and more, and some might call her blessed. There are people here, though, who miss her. Many of those who were forgetting her as she sat in her room, remember her now. They are all sad, and some are very angry. Some of these people need to forgive her and will never be able to. The life that was meant to be hers is now gone, as well as the life that was supposed to be his.

He stands at the graves, both still new and wonders. All of his thoughts are incomplete sentences swirling like dust in his mind. The most developed thought focuses on the size of the mounds of dirt in front of him. The unbalance...He imagines that he hears wings...He is guided away by well-meaning hands, never hearing the words of comfort offered. As he rides home to the casseroles and hams and roasts and salads and cakes and pies he stares at the sky and wonders what is that color blue called? Has he ever seen that color before? He has captured a moment that he can think about later when he starts to feel again, and he is already beginning to survive. As the moments move to days, and weeks, and months and years, he sometimes feel that he has more than he deserves. He misses her and their baby, but he can think of them and, in that instant,  feel happy that they were his. Then he feels a slap of guilt that he was not able to save them. In the end, he is just a human being. What he couldn't give his wife, he is able to give himself, and he lives a good life.

So, here I am, writing this ending. This has been the hardest segment to write, and sitting on top of these three paragraphs are earlier versions that I am going to delete. I was not able to snare the happy ending that I wanted for her, but I think I did her justice. From the first written line, I was worried that I would end here. I have followed the story rather than exerting my will over it. And the bitch of it all is that I *gasp* like this version better.

The End.

heidi
written 3/6/13 for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 98 (click the link to see other submissions)

I'm tired, so not much of a write up here. The other parts of this story (in order) are

One Moment in One Day
 At Some Point Later
The Final Moment

You can click on the titles to read those posts.

The Sunday Whirl Submission: The Final Moment

Wordle 97

The Final Moment

The woman is alone in her house, alone in her bathtub. The water was hot and she is in a deep, deep sleep. She has hoarded all of the pain pills after her C-section, and now the pieces are melted in her body. With a seeming patience, they are slowing her down. For the first time in a long, long time, there is some hint of a smile on her lips, and no tears waiting in her eyes. She gave a fleeting worry about the man who loves her and is also sad, but he is away, farther away than just work, and so the thought of him leaves quickly. Instead of a note, she left the dirty, discarded baby bottle on the bathroom counter. Slowly, the water in her tub begins to turn cold.

The man is at work. For a moment he feels a sharp pain in his chest, stealing his breath. He thinks "I'm having a heart attack." But, the pain passes and the moment is gone and his discipline tells him that there is work to be done. He tries to call her at lunch but the phone just rings and rings, and he leaves a message. He worries a bit and calls a neighbor to ask her to check in, but it is the neighbor's grocery day, and she is already in the supermarket gazing at the food labels. She says she will check when she gets home, but, while looking at produce, the school calls and her little boy has fallen off of the monkey bars and needs to go to the emergency room. She is a human being and a parent, and has all of the limits associated with these two titles. She forgets all about the man and the woman and leaves her cart standing as she rushes out of the store. At that moment, she is heroic, but she is the heroine of a different tale. However, he doesn't know this and returns to his work, eats a Snickers bar in the afternoon, and in the evening, gets ready to go home. If this were a time of prophets, maybe he would have had a more concrete warning, but, if this were the time of prophets, he would probably ignore it.

And here I am, still writing this, becoming less optimistic that I can spin this into something happy. I am just a fly on the wall of this story. How is it that when I write, the characters take control of the story and do what they want? I have seem similar questions, and if I have seen the answer, I don't remember it. I wish that there was something sublime to all of this. I do think that there is one more moment that we need to see, a post-moment moment.


heidi
written for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 97

This is the third part of a story that I have made from the weekly wordles since I started participating in the prompts. The first one is One Moment in One Day and the second is At Some Point Later. You can go to them from here by clicking on the titles here, or in the side bar. I am glad that I paid attention to the comments from the One Moment in One Day and didn't stop there, although this story makes me sad.

The Sunday Whirl Submission: At Some Point Later

At Some Point Later

She has exerted more effort and summoned more strength than she knew she had in order to get to this point. She has decided to take a bath and is now sitting on the toilet seat. It cold against her naked skin, and she is staring into the mirror on the back of the door. Why are there so many stupid, fucking mirrors in this house? She listens to the water fill the tub and breathes in the steam.  Heavy limbs are lifted and moved to the water which is too hot and she is held in an embrace that makes her drowsy.  Maybe too quickly, she is asleep.

The man continues his day and works. There are more interactions with people, but he feels like the real him is hiding somewhere under his skin. He is under this man that everyone sees.  At some point he has given birth to a son that wears him like a costume and goes through his day for him.  He wonders how she is doing and thinks he should call her, but he will not. This costume, this mask lacks empathy and he cannot reach her, so he mourns alone while he carries on with his duties.

And here I am again, at the end of another moment, trying to root out a happy ending for my imaginary family. I write by candlelight with my netbook on my lap and the solution to their problem scurries beyond my reach.

Well, there is always next week.

heidi

written 2/19/13
Submitted to The Sunday Whirl

This is my second submission to The Sunday Whirl. It is continuing from last week's submission, One Moment in one Day. It may be interesting to see where this goes with the wordles from The Sunday Whirl. I copied the picture of this week's (almost last week's) words from Wordle 96. If you want to learn more click on the first link above. There are some cool submissions.

 

The Sunday Whirl Submission: One Moment in One Day

One Moment in One Day

She sits on the bed, looking through herself in the dresser mirror. She can see in the reflection the building chaos peeking from the dustruffle. There is a bottle still half full of coagulated, useless breastmilk. She thinks "I should feel something. Some thread of something." Yet, there was only a vast deep emptyness, a rut where her soul should be. Still not seeing herself, she looks in the mirror and knows that she should get up, bathe, cry, eat, do something, do anything, but mostly move. That doesn't happen.

Outside of this room, outside of this house, people court life. They go to work and complain about their jobs. They eat out and worry about their weight. They play ball with their kids and allow the sun to witness. They fuck and they make love. They laugh and they cry. There is an evershrinking number of them who think about this woman.

There is one man who does think about her. He journeys from the house into the open world and still lives a life. It is a dry, lonely, confusing life. He answers "fine" to the incidental "how are you?" He knows that he lies, and you know too, but, what are you supposed to do?

There are terms that describe what is going on. Terms as sad and tragic as dying coral and just as baffling. And, as we watch this sad tableau searching for the tiniest wisp of happiness, not seeing the plumes, there is a small guilty relief that it is not us.

And me, writing this sad story? I want to rewrite and make it all better. Think of something genius to help this family that I am overidentifying with, but that ending is not in me. Not that this is a rare occurance, often these things run away from me.

Maybe I can save them tomorrow.

heidi
written 02/11/13 for Wordle 95 of The Sunday Whirl .

This is my first attempt at this prompt, which I found through Whimseygizmo's Blog. Each week there is a word bank posted and you write using some or all of those words. I have been wanting to write more prose lately, and have had a heck of a time doing it. So, I used this opportunity to exercise those muscles. I also want to write something funny, but obviously did not do that today.  This week's words were: bathe, term, court, open, bottle, dry, coral, ball, plume, rare, incident, and thread. You can click on the links above for both blogs that I have mentioned here. Thanks to Brenda for the post and the opportunity. I look forward to next Sunday (and maybe something funny.)

One Day On the Bus: Another Look at India

Another Look at India

     You know that this whole experiment was a mistake. It's absolutley bewildering how he thought that you could make it in the real world. You didn't even have to volunteer to come home. He told you to. He commanded, and you return like the good little appliance you are. Shit, you don't even get dog rating, do you? You're like one of those little remote control cars, and now you're going back. You know he's going to shut you down.Why are you doing this? You do have a brain. You know you do...it's metallic. What's the use? You have to go home because you don't like it out here. You miss him. You miss the lab. You don't fit in here. Go home. At least you'll have some happiness before he shuts you down.

heidi

One Day On a Bus: Charlie, the Bus Driver

Charlie, The Bus Driver

     Jesus! Did that bitch go over the freakin' deep end or what? No woman does that to Charlie Hicks and gets away with it! He'll teach her like he used to teach Em before she got in with those lesbo-libbers and ran off. Although Em didn't know how to sock ya' one like this broad. Charlie though that he could come to respect a woman like that India Bellegraves. She even had a strong sounding name. India. Yeah, he could get to like that. It all took him by surprise, though. He would always trip one every now and then. Maybe he had been tripping them a little more since Em had made like a tree. But still, that was no excuse to haul off and hit him like that. How did she even know that he'd done it? Probably because the little lady had a brain or two in her head. Maybe it was time for Charlie to expand his horizons. God knows that Em was always spoutin' off that kind of manure at him. Maybe he's just like this little librarian out. He would still have to punish her first, but maybe afterwards, they could go for a beer or something. Yeah, he'd do just that. Just as soon as he got out of the hospital.

heidi.

My most favorite of this series. I want to try to write him again. He's  awful.

One Day On a Bus:The "Star Trek" Effect

The Star Trek Effect

     Dr. Edward Graves had always been an outcast, mostly because he was very, very shy. When he was forty, he saw an episode of Star Trek where this genus had built himself a female companion. Ignoring, the unhappy ending, he figured that that was probably a good idea, considering that, he too, was a genus, and that human females intimidated him. If he were to build one, he would know that there would be nothing to be afraid of. He was wrong. Obviously, there had been some problems in the small town where he had sent India to live (to see if she would fit in). She had been an outcast too. It also seemed as if she were in serious physical danger. Now, she was on the phone doing something she had never done before. She was crying. She was very confused; the plastic in her nose was broken; she missed him. He had told her that she would have to be shut down if she became violent. But that was before she left. Now she sounded so helpless. The bus driver had tripped her, and she had been humiliated. She was real, at least to him. Could he really kill her?

I apologize for the break. Here is the next installment of "One Day On a Bus". Please enjoy and feel free to share.

Thanks for reading!

heidi

One Day On A Bus: Midge

Midge

     Answer the damn phone, Shirley. Come on. You thought that the shoot-out you saw at the Piggley-Wiggley was hot snot waittill you...Shirl? Girl, did I wake you up? God, I am so sorry. I just had something on my mind that was a buggin' me...do you want me to let you go? I could always call Belinda Jo. Are you sure? I didn't interrupt anything, did I? Woman! Don't you tell me that you have got Mary McFarber's husband Burt over there. I don't wanna hear it! I am a good woman. I only called you to tell you what happened to me today that was very peculiar, but if you would rather do other things, well, then that's fine with me. What? I'm not bothering you though, am I? Good. Well listen to this. You know that new librarian, India Bellegraves, right? Well we were on the same bus today...the one from midtown. I was at the Shoe Shanty, and I got Harv the most adorable pair of bunny slippers on sale there today. They are so funny! They're...what? Oh! Yeah! Well anyway, I was trying to be sociable, you know I always did feel so sorry for the poor girl with no friends and all, but she wouldn't even look at me, and when I practically forced her to talk to me, well! You would not believe how rude she was. I was so offended.  We come to the stop and when she went to get out, you know Charlie Hicks, Em's ex? yeah, well he's drivin' the bus, and India and I go to get off...did I tell you that she lives in Bessie's boardin' house up the block from me? Me either! Anyway, so we're gettin' off, and you know what a.....a...well you know, unpleasant man Charlie is, well, he did something, and tripped her. I can't figure out how he did it, but she fell down the stairs into this puddle. You are not going to believe this next part...actual smoke comes up from where her face is in the puddle, and she stands up and brushes...I was on the stairs...Yes! This has a point. Patience is a virtue, Shirley, dear. Miss Bellegraves walks past me, and I smelled that smell that your cars get when something has broken in your engine on a rainy day, and she looks at him, and she SMILES, and then she punched him out. Then, like nothing happened at all, she just gets out and goes home, and I think, that she is plannin' on movin' out, because there's a van down at Bessie's and the only other boarder she has is Frank the deputy, and you now he's not goin' anywhere since the sheriff died in that hunting accident with him last year. Now, don't you think that's  suspicious? What? What do you mean you don't care? I thought it was important, and interesting...I asked you if you'd rather not talk. What? Fine. I don't have to take this from you miss...hello? Bitch. Don't say goodbye. you know, I wonder what Mary McFarber's doin' right about now, and I wonder if she'd like to hear something interesting.

heidi

This is the second in the "One Day On A Bus Series". I have had trouble with Midge's voice. She sounds like a couple of different people to me. I tend to go back and forth on what she is like and it shows in here.  Although, it was FUN to write. There are some people that I have introduced that I never wrote a piece for, that I think I want to write for now. I wonder how they would fit in? Maybe this will go on a little longer than I had planned. hhmmmm....

Anyway, we have reached another anniversary. This marks the beginning of the fourth week for the lasagna. Thanks for reading, and for the comments and reactions!

One Day On A Bus: India

India

     This has got to be one of the worst days of my entire life. Doctor Graves never informed me that life could be this strenuous. Maybe I'll be able to relax when I get home. First thing I'll do is call Dr. Graves and ask him what to do about Harv. I'm not at all pleased with what he tried to do in the catacombs today. I really wanted to hurt him. Dr. Graves will tell me if my response was correct. Oh dear, the situation has become even more repugnant. Midge is trying to talk to me. I know Dr. Graves says that I should work on human relations, but she just reminds me of her husband. It makes me thing that they're conspiring against me. The husband tries to force himself on me physically and now the wife is trying to do it socially. Finally. We've stopped. This is my exit. Why did I tell her that I lived at the boarding house? Now she wants me to invite her over.
     What!? How did I end up her, on the ground, in this puddle? The bus driver tripped me! Forgive me Dr. Graves, but...ah. That felt better. I guess I should talk Dr. Graves now. He'll be most disappointed that I resorted to violence. I hope he doesn't decide to shut me down.

heidi

This was a part of a writing assignment that I had in a Fiction Writing class taught by Geoff Schmidt in either 1989 or 1990. We had to write about someone falling on a bus from different points of view. I kind of fudged the assignment a little, but not that bad. I am going to post these weekly on Fridays for the next month (maybe five weeks). You will definitely see the geek in me emerge as the story progresses. This is the sort of stuff that I really like writing, but I am having a hard time getting back into prose.

I wish I could find my old syllabi for some of those classes and redo some of the assignments to get me back into the swing of things. If anyone has any ideas for writing assignments, or resources that they would like to share, I would be most grateful. (Although no APA writing exercises...I am done with research writing for a while!) Also, if anyone has any challenges for me that would be kind of cool too. Like, maybe you want me to write a poem where the last word of each line has to rhyme with "Taliban", or you want me to write a one page piece about the color magenta. (okay, there are a couple of exercises right there.) And, now that I have written it and published it on the blog, it would be beyond pathetic if no one offered any challenges. Since I know my friends read this, I know y'all wouldn't want me to be all sad on the Internet!

Finally, happy two weeks! I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing and transcibing it ( I have a lot of stuff saved to a five inch floppy that I can't figure out how to access...any suggestions there would be nice too!)

Have a great weekend, y'all!