The Hat – Indigo Spider’s Sunday Picture Press Writing Challenge

Indigo Spider,  has started a new writing challenge called Sunday Picture Press. She has provided us with a choice of two pictures to be used alone or together to compose a story. Two writers coordinate, each writing half the story.

The photographs Indigo Spider used for this writing prompt were taken by Vivian Maier. You can learn more about this previously unknown photographer, Ms. Maier,  and her fantastic rich photos of  everyday life at the following web site: http://www.vivianmaier.com/.

I have written Part I of the story and Indigo Spider has written Part II. To see the photo chosen  as the writing prompt, please see Indigo Spider’s blog site at  http://indigospider.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/an-experiment-sunday-picture-press/and enjoy the story!

 The Hat

Debbie looked ahead at those in line thinking very soon she would be accepting a ticket from this tall woman who looked like a man. She couldn’t help staring into her face, or maybe it was his face?  Eyebrows with a triangular look to them were painted black and thicker in the corners near the upper bridge of the nose. She looked closely at her, or was it his, eyes. Eye pencil, thick and black, covered the hoods, deeper black on the inner and outer of the eye area. A half C shaped line made by the eyebrow pencil started in the middle of the bottom lid following the outer cheek pad to the lower chin  area stopping abruptly at the jowl line.

Mama turned and told Debbie, “I am heading to the bathroom. I will be gone just a minute. Don’t buy the ticket if the person acts or looks strange because circus people can be dangerous. You know how things are these days. Don’t forget to meet me near the door after you get our tickets.”

Debbie nodded to Mama. How many times had she heard that? Mama always got sidetracked and this would probably be no exception.

The line inched forward. Seven year old Debbie saw the ticket lady’s hat, the huge hat that looked like a flying saucer, the same kind the teacher had read about in school today. This flying saucer hat was black but the teacher said most of them, the real flying saucers, were silver, almost like stainless steel. She said they probably were sent by Russia, too. Russia was spying on us over here all the time. Debbie’s heart pounded. Could she be involved in a plot, a plot with Russia? What would her friends think?

She scrutinized the lady and noticed a dark black line that went from the middle of under the nose to the lips, touching them. The lipstick was so black it looked no different from the eye makeup. Maybe that line had something to do with spy equipment?

Finally, after accepting the ticket and hearing the lady say thank you in a brusque deep voice, Debbie looked up, her innocent blue eyes big and wondering. Wait a minute. That sounds like a man’s voice. Oh, no! She noticed what looked like a spy wire that went from her hair line to inside her inner ear. Look at that ruffled blouse, she thought. This is definitely a spy situation and not a circus situation. Wait until she tells all her schoolmates tomorrow what is happening right here in the city.

Debbie reached out and grabbed the tickets with her hands, looking at her new white gloves. Sundays were like that, you know. Every other day of the week her flesh-colored hands were good enough but on Sundays Mama made her wear those white gloves. She was sure it had to do with what Mama always called their ‘blue blood’.

Indigo’s Ending:

Debbie quickly rushed away, clutching the tickets tightly in her gloved hands, looking for Mama. She kept glancing at the strangely painted man, wondering about the wire, trying to see if she would catch him whispering to someone on the other end.

Her palms were sweating in the gloves and some of the ink from the tickets stained the white cotton. Debbie worried, Mama would be mad, and she tried to clean the stain. She went to the bathroom hoping she could wash them before she bumped into Mama. The ladies room was empty. Debbie felt lucky, she must have just missed Mama, she could wipe her gloves and wait outside before Mama even noticed she was gone. As she held the glove under the faucet she looked up into the mirror and saw a woman with the same strange hat as the man who sold her the ticket.

She had soft auburn curls that fell down her shoulders and the strange, saucer shaped black hat was tilted at a strange angle. Debbie held her breath hoping she wouldn’t be seen staring. This was obviously someone different as she didn’t have the thick black make-up marking her face. This was clearly a woman. Debbie noticed the same spy wire that went from the woman’s hairline to her inner ear. Fear gripped Debbie.

She bolted from the bathroom, forgetting her glove in the sink, and burst out blindly. She was panting when she bumped into Mama’s back, who glared down at her. “Where were you? And what happened to your glove?” Debbie was wide-eyed and frantic, unable to speak, on the verge of tears, convinced there were spies in their midst. Mama gripped Debbie’s arm hissing, “Stop panting like a dog! Have some decorum. What is wrong with you?” Debbie finally managed to squeak out what she had seen. Mama looked incredulous but knew her daughter would never lie. She marched her over to a police officer to tell the story. Debbie was frightened, what if the spies knew she was the one who discovered them?

Calmly, the police officer listened to her story, his eyes sparkling. Once she finished her tale he began laughing. Mama was angry at his laughter, how dare he laugh at someone of high breeding as her family! Debbie was confused and felt foolish. She fought back tears. The police officer took her hand, gently leading her back towards the ticket seller. Debbie wanted to pull her hand free, fearing that the officer was part of the plot.

When they reached the ticket seller the officer tapped him on his shoulder. “Fred, sorry to bother you, but this young lady is a little confused. She claims you have a spy wire on you.” Fred looked confused for a moment and Debbie thought he would run now that he was caught. Instead, he smiled and squatted down at eye-level with Debbie, turned his head so she could see his ear, and pulled out a hearing aid. Debbie didn’t know what she was looking at, she looked up at the officer, who explained, “Fred here has a hearing problem. He’s almost deaf and that thing in his ear helps him hear. It isn’t a spy wire at all. The woman you saw in the bathroom is his wife, Elsie.”

Debbie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She felt foolish but relieved. Mama grabbed her by the arm and they went to see the show. The next day Debbie told all her schoolmates about how she broke up a spy ring at the circus the day before.

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One Man’s Trash

BeKindRewrite, Inspiration MondayXI, has again provided us with a feast of prompts. Thank you, Stephanie!

One Man’s Trash

Jenna winced as she ran her fingers over her left jaw, black and blue…again. She touched her left breast. It felt sore, inflamed and swollen! If only she had listened to her friends and family those three long years ago. Instead, here she was, clear across country, strangers all around her, and even worse, with a stranger in her own house, someone she had once been in love with and trusted.  

“When did things change?” she wondered out loud. She had taken up talking to herself. It soothed her. She knew when she answered she wouldn’t feel two feet tall and berated. She wouldn’t have to worry about a slap, pinch, kick, punch, or rape.

She reached into her jacket pocket looking for a small piece of paper she had recently found in a bathroom at the mall. It was gone. It didn’t matter. She had memorized the meaning behind the words. She didn’t have to live with abuse. There were other options and choices out there. Her life could be better. She needed only to reach out.

Jenna thought of the picture she had seen recently of an iceberg. It had hit her like a ton of bricks. She had stared at it and studied it for hours. A very small part was visible above water. Beneath, invisible to the eye, a much larger mass was attached, lurking, impending danger, a menace with the ability to take life, to destroy it, and all without knowledge it could happen.

“That is me. I am an iceberg. My visible hurts, my black and blue cheeks and breasts are here for the world to see even though I do my best to hide them. Much worse, though, are my invisible hurts, what no one can see, so much larger, destroying me, my mind, my soul, who I am and even worse, who I can be. Why haven’t I seen these invisible changes?”

She thought of all the advice she had been given. She had ignored them all. She had been in love. Everything would be so wonderful. How embarrassing, how humiliating, she thought, to have been so wrong in the one thing that had felt so right.

Just then, the door flew open. Jenna startled and jumped noticeably.

He walked over to her. She could smell alcohol on his breath.  He hadn’t gone to work, again.

“What’s a matter, bitch? You afraid?”

Jenna held her breath knowing it was coming, and it did, sharp and painful, a punch and a kick. Visible!  Inside, underneath was all that hurt, agony, torment, dejection. Invisible!

“You deserve it. You are nothing, not even a whore. At least a whore is worth something. Trash, yup, trash, one man’s trash!”

He laughed, spit on the floor near her shoe, looked at her in disgust, and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Jenna’s eyes brimmed, swimming in tears salted from sorrow and grief. She looked around at this place she didn’t call home, put both hands gently but firmly on her hungry, hurt heart and whispered, “…is another man’s treasure…One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

Her wet eyes softly smiled, even through her pain and sadness. As she reached out and picked up the phone, she knew she was going to be alright!

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In a Better Place

Again, Stephanie of BeKindRewrite InMonIX  has gone above and beyond with her inspiring prompts. Thank you for giving us so much of your valuable time!

In a Better Place

Sarah looked at her gifts spread across the living room sofa and smiled. Her retirement party was the best one she had ever attended: co-workers, friends, her son J.J. along with his wife and their two boys, and, of course, Paul, her husband. She always teased and called him her gift in old age. She had met him six years ago. It had been the night of her big Six-O. She had a flat tire on busy Route One on her way home from dinner with friends. He had stopped to help out, and, well, the rest was history.

Just then, Paul walked in, kissed her forehead and gave her an intimate pat on her behind. Life is good, she thought as she lovingly brushed his gray thinning hair with her hand.

“Will we be having steak for dinner?” Paul asked after kissing her cheek.

“Hmmm, my retirement isn’t only at the office, is it?” Sarah’s eyes crinkled as she teased.

“Let me get the grill started, m’ lady!” he said, and, laughing, off he went past the sunroom to the outside deck.

A reflection of light in the large picture window caught Sarah’s eye. She turned and looked at all the framed memories of her life on that long windowsill shelf. She walked over to them thinking she may not want to go there today. Her heart always panged at seeing them. She knew she would go there, though, because they were part of her. She picked up a photo and wondered how it would have felt to have them at her retirement party, too.

She rubbed the outer frame gently, longingly, and then slowly brought the picture up to her lips, kissing the glass. Her twin baby girls, golden hair, blue eyes, large striking beautiful blue eyes, and cheeks that she would have liked to cuddle and lightly pinch all day long. Sarah closed her eyes and remembered.

Her thirties had not been good to her. Three deep hurts she had survived in that decade, huge losses that left her struggling and bleeding until scar tissue could toughen her damaged heart. Sometimes she even wondered how she had been able to survive those years.

The horrible crash from her hydroplaning car during that rain storm had taken them, her two year old babies. She and four year old J.J. had been unhurt. She never could understand it. Why them and why not her?  They were just starting life. She had been living for thirty four years. They should have been able to stay. She would have gladly given up everything for them: her happiness, her breath, her life.  I survived when I didn’t want to, she thought.

Two years later, in that nasty decade, while she was still reeling from missing her babies, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. How could she leave behind J.J. and her husband, Jacob? She had fought so hard: mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and then reconstructive surgery. She had made it. Again, survival!  The scars were there, though: scars from fear, fear of reoccurrence, fear of death. Even though her new breasts hadn’t shown that fear and looked normal, whatever normal is, fear was there, everywhere.  Funny how some things can look so normal even though deep inside the feeling surrounding them is anything but that.

It had all been too much for Jacob. He couldn’t deal with it anymore. It overwhelmed him, losing his girls and then almost losing his wife. He walked out. Just like that, he was gone from their lives. He left Jacob, Junior with her. Her precious J.J.  She had cried and cursed and screamed and talked with God, begging him for mercy, begging him to intervene, begging for Jacob back. It never happened. And she had survived, with the scarring on her heart even thicker and the vulnerable part of her hidden to everyone through her forties and fifties.

The front screen door opens and young voices and footsteps can be heard laughing and running in the hall. With a start, Sarah comes back to her world of today, her sixth decade. She gently puts her framed picture back in its place, moving it slightly to the right so it can be seen well by all. With her head high and contentment in her eyes she walks out of the living room, ever so slightly glancing back at the shelf of her framed memories, when life was about hurt and loss.

J.J. hugs his mother while her grandsons beg her to go out and play a game with them. At a distance she can see Paul working his magic on the grill, whistling one of his old songs.

Sarah smiles thinking of the time she will be able to spend with her family in her retirement. She quickly glimpses in short kodachrome frames all the decades of her life, slowing a bit at the thirties. With her eyes looking forward she knows she is in a better place.

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Whispers from the Casket

Kudos to you, Stephanie of BeKindRewrite for the amazing prompts for Inspiration Monday VI. Thank you!

WHISPERS FROM THE CASKET

 The familiar scent of the B&M factory wafted past my nostrils and into my memory.  It was a short eleven months ago this baked bean bouquet greeted me.  My small home town was where a working man’s dream was a life beyond blue collar. Gram Helen had taken me in her arms and smothered my cheeks with her warm kisses, so glad to see me. Dearest Gram. Could I ever love anyone more?

Today is bittersweet.  I am in a cab holding my husband’s hand, with my unborn child, our daughter, somersaulting in utero, all three of us heading to the funeral home. This is my Gram Helen’s day. It is a celebration of her life, a life well lived.  

She gave me all good things. If I close my eyes and think back I can still hear her beautiful off-key voice as she held my hand, caressing my long hair and singing with all her heart those generations-old songs. If these eyes squeeze even tighter I can see the two of us, together on her big flowered couch crocheting up a storm.  My young hands always watched her knotted arthritic hands and the magic they produced.  One little six inch mass of mixed up and tangled yarn from me resulted in ooh’s and aah’s from her adoring eyes.

The cab pulls up. We step out. There to greet me is my mother. She smiles, lightly hugs me and the thought faintly crosses my mind ‘Who said vodka doesn’t smell?’  Her first words to me are “So, Rose, do you think the clouds are getting a little lower now?”  I kiss her cheek and tell her she looks good. Mom will never change. She rarely uses my given name, instead preferring Rose Colored Glasses. I saw the good in everyone. She saw the opposite. But it worked out. We lived two doors down from Gram and when mom was gone for long periods of time having ‘fun’, Gram and I were cuddling and having fun, too. My heart was able to beat to a normal rhythm because of the two-door-down life we kept. Forever grateful I will be.

So many people surround me, hug me, kiss me, tell me how much they loved her, how she helped when they were beyond help, how her sense of humor made them laugh, how they could tell her anything and she would understand.  On and on, the stories don’t stop. I am so grateful their love for her is as endearing as mine. What better testimony to a life well lived!

I gather courage, swallow and walk up to her casket. I see a smile there, a bit different from the smile I knew so well, a man-made smile, and I look closer. I imagine her soft whisper. Her whisper is saying, ”You were the joy of my life, from my very own you came, not quite once-removed, my flesh and blood. Don’t ever forget you are mine and you are loved…dearly loved, my little alpha girl.”

I nod to the director. I am ready. I reach into my jacket pocket for my notes. I look at the words. I don’t need these. I put them away. My Gram Helen always loved me from her heart. I will use my heart to speak. I look out at them all, faces with stories, all of them, looking back at me with anticipation.  I smile at her memory and I begin.

 “We are here today to honor the life of an extraordinary woman. She was not the CEO of a multibillion dollar company, not educated at an Ivy League school. She didn’t discover a great scientific breakthrough and was not a famous writer or artist. What she did was far more important than all those things combined.

She loved me, a little girl, spent her precious time with me, and taught me how to grow up to love others, to be kind, productive, help when there was a need. She showed me how to appreciate the gift of life. The words to follow epitomize my Gram and the first time I read them I thought the writer knew her personally. Years later I learned differently, but they still fit her to a tee. They are taken from 1Corinthians 13:4-8, from the Bible, her favorite book.

“’Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends’”. 

The cab ride back to the airport was contemplative. My husband glanced over at me then put his gentle hand on the life growing inside me. I stroked his forehead then covered his hand with mine. We felt her movement at the same time. Our eyes met and locked. Little Helena would know her namesake. Helen with an a, our little alpha girl, the beginning of love.

 4/10/11 for Inspiration Monday VI prompts from BeKindRewrite

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