nightmares

{let me preface this by stating: This is NOT a true occurrence – this is where the prompt led me, though there have been news stories where this could have been the scenario}

“Sweat beaded on her forehead and she took a shuddering breath. She was so close to being done forever.” How long had she been quivering like this she wondered, as the painful spasms rocked her body once more. The sweat and other substances flowed and dripped off her body. She couldn’t understand why something like this was happening to her…

She thought back to her childhood when she first arrived at the house. She heard everything that was said to her, but having been born mute could never ‘speak for herself,’ so when the nice lady at the home where she lived with the other children told her she was going to a good home, she thought things would change, and that maybe someone could teach her to make the sounds the others made….instead, she remained trapped in a world where only guttural moans and grunts came from her throat.

The new place seemed nice, and the people that lived there: an elderly woman who could barely see or hear, needing an extra set of hands to care for her…..so if nothing else, the girl felt useful. The man that lived there as well, that was a different thing…..he was younger than the old woman, with beady little eyes that watched e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g she did, and sometimes appeared as though he was ill, breathing hard and licking his lips. The man made her nervous, and he did not seem to talk much to anyone, though as she got a little older she quickly learned what a certain look in the eyes meant and made herself scarce so that he would not touch her. He let her get away with avoiding him sometimes, though the smile never reached his eyes when he would only say “I’ll see you later’…..She dreaded those times, because she knew he would come to her bed that night and she wouldn’t be able to breathe when the big sweaty body lay over her…she learned quickly not to fight what the man did because he would make her hurt even more…She did try to avoid it by going to the old woman’s room, hoping for protection, but in the dark of night the old woman neither saw nor heard what happened on the floor beside her bed, and the man would still take what he wanted, then walk her back to her own room and take her once more…

She shuddered at that memory….once a night was bad enough, but having to endure the pawing hands that touched her everywhere inside and out AGAIN made her want to retch, violently in order to empty herself of his touch, much like her body seemed to want to do now….she could smell the metallic sweet odor of blood, knew it to be her own… Pain racked her body once more….the waves of clenching pain kept rolling through her…she took another shuddering breath…..

She had decided she could no longer live in that house…the elderly woman had expired, quite peacefully, some 2 weeks back…now there was nothing to stop the man from touching, or pinching, or fondling, or worse, w-h-e-n-e-v-e-r he wanted. Since she could not speak and had never learned to write, there was no way she could have made anyone else aware of her situation, but she knew she had to leave and get as far away from here as possible…..

The man was gone when she woke that morning, the truck as well…..good, his weekly trip to town, so she had a few hours before he returned….no time to waste. She moved quickly, too quickly it seemed as her body tightened into spasm bringing her to her knees…taking a deep breath she slowly stood up, and picked up the items she had previously stashed and hidden, tied them together in a small bundle, looked around once more, turned to walk out, then stopped. She turned once more, this time moving resolutely toward the stove where she helped herself to several red embers in an old pottery jug. She turned to leave once more and once more her body betrayed her as more shudders racked her slight frame, causing her to drop the jug of embers which rolled away across the floor in every direction….no time to obtain more, she had to get out of there, so she moved towards and through the door, closing it softly behind her….
She moved to the tree line as quickly as her body would permit, as the spasms continued with every movement…she made sure to walk in the stream so that no one could follow her….the icy water numbed her feet causing her slip on the rocks, so it was hard to tell if the pain was because her belly hit a rock, or if it still only came from within her….she tried to hurry out of the water, slipped once more, reached to grab a branch only to find it was a bramble that pulled loose resulting in her landing backwards in the icy stream once more. She stumbled out of the water and headed into the woods where she soon found herself hopelessly disoriented…she did not notice the deeper shadows that yawned open before her, and tumbled deep within the old well…the darkness mingled with the unrelenting pain…the blood poured out of her from several mortal gashes, all the while her body tried to expel itself of something else…..her eyes fluttered closed….her breathing sounding more and more ragged and shallow, sweat pouring from her as her body twisted and contorted in pain….

crying in the dust

“…I'm so tired of being here . . . I wish that you would just leave
Your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone…”

Your words still resonate in my heart, though it has been quite some time since you spoke to me. Why did I survive and you did not? The plan had always been for us to be together, to live and love and grow old together…whose idea was it to shorten your lifeline in such a way that we couldn’t share the end together?

My memories take me back to days sitting on the back porch swing, holding hands, talking of the future….where we would live, what kind of house would we build ,how many kids would we have…..you know, all the dreams young couples in love are supposed to have…I could so clearly see us in our golden years still sharing the back porch swing, holding hands and reflecting on all we had accomplished with our lives…..

When I open my eyes there is only dust and loneliness filling the empty years….the house became someone else’s home when I could no longer bear to live there alone…the memories those walls hold are theirs now, not mine and never yours….

“. . . . These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase . . .
I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts . . . me . . . “

Oh how I wish I could no longer hear your voice or see your face in my mind….I cannot move on even now, and it has been so long. I crave a peace that I cannot have…..immortality is only as good as the companions you have, and I grow ever more weary of a life without you…..

“. . . But you still have all of me . . .”

The List -- part A

First, let me preface this by stating that it does not fall under any of the weekly writing prompts I have been attempting to follow...this is more of an aside, which will be followed with a Part-B at some point in the near future.

It seems that lately everywhere I go, whether it be a book store or somebody’s blog, I am finding lists. Lists of the author’s degrees or other books published, other blogs that are being followed, how-many-and-where-from readers of said blog. There are even lists of the Top 100 ___ -- people to meet, places to go, things to do, books to read, etc…I guess in a way putting The List down in print somewhere makes you feel you have to follow it, you are somehow held accountable for all that it contains and made to feel a failure if things do not go as planned and the list is completed by the time you are at death’s door…. Do I want to do that to myself ? …well, not so much in terms of the items on the bucket list HAVE to BE DONE/BE SEEN/BE READ/BE MET/etc…The List for me would include items from all and every aspect, but I see it more of a Wish List of things I would like to see or do, or people I would like to sit and talk with, or places I would like to explore whether from a historical/educational/enjoyment aspect…the list would be a combination of all of the above because oftentimes the items cross over between categories making them difficult to label as one or the other.

With that being said, I could also not qualify each item listed with a number of order, because as with all “interests” and “wish list” items, they change in priority as one moves through life. So, does this make the list a de-cluttering of my life by making me focus on just certain things, or is it in fact cluttering it up even further by limiting my life experiences to just what is on the list?

We shall have to see….stay tuned for Part B….

Morning Dance for May

There was a dance at the bird feeder this morn...as I stood at the back door with coffee in hand, I watched the ever-changing procession of birds coming in for a fast bite before heading back to their nests. Looking over the lawn, there is movement that is not wind-caused but little brown sparrows of several varieties. Quite fun to watch their little tails go straight up as the head bobs to the ground to pick up morsels previously dropped by others. The feeder hanging in the tree above them is a regular way-station too.....a sparrow there is soon joined by a chickadee (there is a pair that has returned to make their nest in the swing-pipe across the yard)...The blue-green headed grackles roll in and the small birds scatter, however, the noisemakers of this local bird community don't get to enjoy much of it before they are run off by another of the noisemakers, the bluejay. He comes in and struts around like he owns the place (he is one of about a dozen we see here), jumping onto the feeder where his weight sets it to rocking and in the process knocking seeds to the ground where he then goes to reap his reward. Then, a flash of red coming in from the side...the cardinal is back this morning too, though I am not sure if this is a young un-attached male or the female (there were 3 cardinals vying for rights in this yard last year)...a few minutes of feeding and then off it goes as well.

Always a different crowd in the yard, and you never know if it will be the songbirds, the showbirds, or the disruptive bully-birds....We have had sparrows, woodpeckers, nuthatches, grosbeaks, and the occasional hummingbird….there have been turkeys in the lower yard, and even a Canada goose one summer (there is a pair that nests quite close to here every year). There is also a blue heron I have seen – this will be the third year this un-attached bird is here. The mourning doves and robins, and of course the crows, are here all summer long. Sometimes in the early evening you hear the solitary call of an owl as well....that, and the lonely-sounding calls of the loons who live on the pond....have also seen a few small hawks (and with the multitude of small wildlife here, the pickings are good for them). There is also a bonded pair of eagles nesting on the pond a short distance away, so we have gotten to enjoy seeing them and their two youngling floating on the air currents, recognizable from a distance because of the white heads....

Yes, definitely a different world out there, but a wonderful one to be a part of, even if it is only the dance around the May-pole known as the feeding station …

Letters from the past

I found a letter today…well, ok, not today…the pile of mail had been sitting where I dumped it on the side table almost a week ago. In any case, this envelope looked out of place with its grayish-yellow paper and what looked to be smudged pencil lettering on it. But it was addressed to me, Anita Spenser, and the return address almost completely ineligible due to the water stains, though the name of Bob Su-- and the US—below it were clear enough to see. Well, this was a puzzle to be sure….Da’s name was not Bob or Robert either, nor was it his father’s name, so…who was Bob ??

It seems I must give you a little history for this to make sense. I moved back to my childhood home after my divorce and re-took my maiden name of Spenser. Ma was in and out of hospitals with an illness that Da would never name (I suspect it may have been a type of cancer), so I mostly helped Da around the house and farm. When Ma passed on, it soon became evident that Da was floundering without her companionship, and his mental capacities faded more and more each day. When he finally passed as well, with a smile on his face no less, saying simply “I’m coming Midge, just wait up for me”, I knew he was going to a happier place. So, my parents house was now mine. I remember as a child coming here and playing in the fields near the barn…this was Gran’s house. I was always her favorite, you see, and she let me get away with many an escapade that none of my friends could lay a claim to…One year for my birthday, she gave me a small key, telling me it was something very precious to her, and that someday I would need that key so I should hold it very dear to me as well. That seemed out of character for Gran to say something like that, but as a child I didn’t think much further than the words themselves and the fact that she gave me something she so obviously prized….in hindsight it did seem that there were days when Gran seemed almost sad and introspective about something she was thinking on or remembering, but the child saw only the bright sunny day and the breeze making the hay wave across the fields and just had to go out and play…..

Anyway, the faded letter brought all the childhood memories back….what would I find inside the envelope, I wondered…something mundane or exciting? Was this a long-lost relative who went to war, or something more simplistic like Grampy couldn’t write and so a friend of his wrote for him? I steeled myself for what I would find, and slowly slid the envelope open.

A single sheet of folded paper lay within, with only a few lines looking like they had been written in a hurry. “Dearest Ani” it began, “How do I tell you how excited and pleased I am with your news? To know that our love has created something amazing…my joy knows no bounds! I cant’t wait to get home and put my ring on your hand…”

What ? ! Gran was pregnant? And not married! Wow!...that was never anything Da said a word about, nor Gran ever mention either.

So, what to do? I sat there, lost in thought for some time, wondering about this babe …was it possible that Gran had another child before Da, one who’s existence or any information about, may be stashed somewhere in this house? After all, she grew up in this house, there had to be some of her things that were never gotten rid of, couldn’t there? …Perhaps in the basement? No, those were Da’s boxes that I had moved to the cellar after he passed, and I did not remember seeing anything about Gran in them…..

Perhaps the attic then?...I hadn’t gotten very far in exploring that area yet, and memories of Gran telling me that was NOT a playground and I needed to stay out of it….could she have been hiding something there, something she did not want anyone to see? Did I want to resurrect old ghosts and secrets?

With this in mind, and no small amount of trepidation, I headed for the attic pull-stairs. After bodily shoving the door flap upward (and sending it flying into a pocket of dust that almost had me falling off my perch when I started sneezing and coughing), I shined the flashlight around and above the opening. Jackpot! There was a cord hanging there that when pulled, dimly illuminated various shrouded forms and piles of boxes, an old rocking horse with the broken leg that I remembered playing with as a child, Ma’s polished mirror that used to grace her room until she lost all her hair the last time she was so sick, and faintly at the far end some light was coming in from an attic window….Well, that single light bulb and this flashlight were not going to be enough.

Back down I headed to find an additional light source. Once I had this, I returned to the attic once more to begin my exploration. It was going to be a long process, as each ‘form’ had to be uncovered to be examined. What wonderful treasures and surprises there were …an old coat tree intricately carved with delicate vines and what I believed to be a tail of something that began at the floor and wound their way up to the top where an impressive dragon head with mirrored eyes appeared. An old steamer trunk with Da’s initials carved into it, which when opened revealed packets of letters carefully tied together, which upon inspection revealed themselves to be love letters between he and Ma when they were courting – I’ll have to come back to those at a later date. Several pieces of furniture: straight backed chairs from Gran’s parlor, a trundle bed I remembered using as a child, and oddly enough, a church pew. Boxes with assorted dishes and glassware, knick knacks that hadn’t seen the light of day in my lifetime, newspapers about the Depression and the War….. Obviously some of it would need to be disposed of, such as the very much moth-eaten and mouse-homed stuffed chair and blankets, but much that was not. Slowly I worked my way along one wall to the window. It was at this point that I realized that there were several boxes shoved far back under the eaves almost hiding behind other things – perhaps Gran hadn’t wanted those to be found and so had tucked them away behind everything else.

I went after the bottommost and furthest back…..stood to reason if Gran didn’t want anyone finding it by accident, it would be covered up/buried under something. The old box appeared to be what may have once been a hat box, octagonal in shape, with a faded cabbage rose print now gone to tan. It opened easily enough, with a slightly cracked paper sound. Oh my, sitting on the very top were hair ribbons and a military dog-tag, along with a picture of a young smiling couple who appeared to be very much in love. The girl’s face was my own when I looked in the mirror so obviously had to be Gran; the boy’s was unknown, certainly looked nothing at all like Da….I examined the tags….Sutt, Robert I is what it said. So there it was, the name of Gran’s beau. Below that, an old military formal-type envelope addressed to Gran, one that appeared to have gotten wet and/or crinkled up at some point in its life…I started to read the single-page form letter it contained…”..regret to inform you of the death of Sgt. Sutt…..”

So there it was…the reason this all hidden away, he no longer walked among the living and she wanted no reminders.…I looked further into her box and found her diary – tightly packed pages with folded papers pressed within its pages, but it was locked. Below that, an envelope from what appeared to be a Home for unwed mothers with nothing inside it….

I had found her secret, but short of destroying the diary, I would never know what it contained……I realized now that the key she had given me all those years ago HAD been to her heart, the heart she left at the home when they buried her Sergeant….the key that I had dropped down the well shaft years before… .


{the names and events noted in the above are in no way an actual re-telling of anyone’s history, merely coincidence ….}

..Oh to be .....

Have you ever heard the expression “..oh to be a fly on the wall..” and wondered, what if you actually were? What kinds of things would you see, or hear, or do if you actually were? Would your perception of life as you know it change because you were no longer bigger than everything around you, but instead just a tiny speck? Would you be scared of “giants” or exhilarated at the freedom of getting into tiny crevices that opened into whole new worlds? Would you be a solitary creature, or part of a group? Would you live a long satisfying life, or would you live-and-die in the space of a day?

Come with me, if you dare, and see…..


….m-u-s-t…. come …out… of.. this thing
..so dry and hot in here….and I am hungry..oh so hungry

….gotta get out, gotta go eat….oh, smell something, gotta go see, need to eat, gotta go to it, gotta go eat…zztt..there, I’m out of here

…gotta go, need to eat

…oooh, so many colors out here and they are all around me., gotta go, gotta eat, pretty white slug…..zztt…gotta eat…sspptt – slurp- yumm

gotta go, gotta see…zztt…smells like….zztt ymm

….sounds exploding, gentle vibrations of air as beasts move below me and near me….smell the heat and hot bodies, feel the moist air as the beast breathes…so hot, smells good, gotta eat….zztt…whistles in the distance with sharp yips, voices calling, tramp of feet, heat rising to me…gotta go..gotta eat…gotta see …..zzztt…brown mountain smells yumm, gotta eat…zztt

….oooh…another like me…mmm…gotta see, gotta go there…zzzt over and ..

..hey! …

s
w
i
s
h…

s-p-P-L-A-A-T !


“Mommie…look! I squashed a bug! “

this 'n that, or, is it Spring yet ?

..well, busy couple of weeks, still writing (in my head), just never seem to be able to "immortalize" it ....such is life.

Actually made some bread this past week...how utterly satisfying to hear the soft pop of gas bubbles popping as you knead the dough, feeling the slight elastic resistance as you turn, push and pull it towards you....and how absolutely delightful to smell the wonderful aroma of fresh baked bread(s), to hear the hollow thwump on the crust telling you it is done...the fragrant air that fills the house....yumm

The past few days have been rather nice...sunny skies, warmish temps, grass turning green, yellow-gold-green buds on tree branches, "peepers" calling in the pond across the way, and birdsong filling the air...yes, an early spring for us....as much as I love the chilly temps and crunch of snow underfoot, I can do without the muddy mess that needs to be put up with before the world around me truly "goes green" ......