NANOWRIMO 24 Day 4

 

Prompt: Write a story that includes a reoccurring sound 

 

You’re a liar. 

The clerk frowned. “You okay?”

Looking up from my inky fingers, I nodded. Deep breath. “I will be. I hope.”

“You’ve got a little ink on your face. Here.” He pointed to my cheek. 

“It’s a bruise,” I said.  

The clerk winced. 

I had a bunch of matching ones on my inner thighs, but the clerk didn’t need to know that. 

 

You’re a liar. 

Clicking the pen, I scrawled my signature and handed over the paperwork. The restraining order was one page. One flimsy page. It weighed nothing but the words on it, crammed, tiny, splattered with tears, spilling into margins, carried universes of memories, some good once but overshadowed by anger, denial, acceptance, self-hate, which was the worst. That last one would take a while to recover from. 

 

“No one will believe you. You’re a liar.”  Him, my in-laws. He’d enlisted all of them:  father, mother, brothers, sisters. They all said it. Phone calls, voice mails, emails. As if repeating their words over and over would make them true. But I knew better. 

 

The clerk directed me to the courtroom, which was two flights up. The elevator was convenient, but I opted for the stairs. I ascended slowly, each painful step reminding me. 

I’m not a liar. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 NANOWRIMO 24  Day 3

Prompt: I awoke one morning, after uneasy dreams, and find myself transformed. 

 

The cotton sheets, comforter, pillows, rug, all the lovely trappings of the Killarney Royale Hotel are gone. There is only a pathetically small pile of straw, strewn over a hard, dirt floor. My legs are bare, bony. What happened to my calf muscles? Where are my leggings? I’m in a cotton nightshift too thin for warmth. My stomach cramps again. Again? 

 

The room is dark and silent, except for my sister, whose snuffles and sighs must have awoken me. She is on her side, curled up like a cat, shaking in her sleep. I cover her bare arms with handfuls of straw, then study my surroundings. 

 

As my eyes adjust, I see a crude wooden stool, a small table with spindly legs, a blackened hearth. Other than that, our cottage is empty. Well of course it is. We sold everything else for food -- stale bread, mugs of thin soup. How many days ago was that? Too many.  My stomach is on fire. I grimace.  

 

Stifling a groan, I rise onto stiff legs and limp toward the turf bucket. It’s still empty, just like yesterday and the day before and before that for weeks on end. There’ll be no remedy for the cold again today. 

 

The room spins and I lean against the crumbling mud wall to steady myself. Through our window, I see that outside, the sun is rising, shedding golden light over a land that has betrayed us: blighted potato fields, and shallow graves where the kitchen garden used to be, resting places for the parents, the grands, and some neighbors too. I’ll be next if God is kind, but it’s likely my sister won’t have the energy to bury me. It’s almost her time too. Our bones, picked clean by whatever animals still exist on this hellish plain, will stand as testament to our history, the cruelty of the land, the government, the so-called religious urging us to convert to Protestantism so then we can be fed. 

 

I recall my dream. Two sisters, bellies full, wandering our fields which are not decaying but flourishing, in strange men’s clothes, pantaloons tight to their legs, brogues laced halfway to their knees, and carrying packs that buckled at their considerable waists.  They were laughing. 

 

Yesterday, when my sister was resting, which is all we have energy for now, I sat among the graves, tore up handfuls of grass sprouting up from the dead, stuffed my mouth. Like a sheep, I was, chewing and swallowing as though my very future depended on this miserable meal. My belly cramps again. As I double over in pain liquid gushes from between my legs. I pray that it’s blood. I pray that it’s all that I am.  Jesus and Mary, the saints, and every holy thing, take my child. Take me too. 

 NANOWRIMO 24 Day 2

Needs some editing, but that's for another day.  

Prompt: The day the mirror shattered

 

 

The sounds: dings, beeps, groans, murmurs.

The locale: Intensive Care Unit

The characters: mom (dying), daughter (crying), assorted disinterested medical workers. 

 

The hand of the younger woman who was mid 50s? early 60s? -- grief, especially sudden grief, ages one quickly --  was soft and freckled,  pulsing with life. It clutched – if one can clutch desperately but gently too, the hand of the other, which was unnaturally white and punctured with needles, bandaged, bruised black and red, cold. Too cold. 

 

They were practically doppelgangers, obviously mother and child, separated by decades but connected in ways that couldn’t be seen, but even objective observers, like disinterested medical workers, could feel. Their hair, both recently shaped, chin-length bobs, was dyed the same brown, though the patient’s was tangled, wet with sweat. The daughter wore a pink cardigan over a paisley button down, Christmas presents from mom, who had laughed, delighted, when she opened her present that year, which was the same. In most ways, they were reflections. 

 

The mother’s green eyes were closed. The daughter’s green eyes were open and tear-filled. 

 

She nodded to the doctor. “We’re ready,” she said. 

 

While the nurses unplugged the dozens of tubes attached to the computers surrounding the hospital bed, swiftly, efficiently, too easily the doctor ripped off the medical tape on the patient’s lips, then coolly pulled out the ridged tube that coursed through her throat and down to her lungs, ignoring the gagging sounds that alarmed the daughter and made her jump, gasping and trembling, grabbing her own throat, from her chair.

 

“Stop! You’re hurting her! Please stop! This isn’t right.”  

 

A nurse put a calming hand to her shoulder. “It’s done,” she said. “The suffering. It’s done.” She pointed to the heart and blood pressure numbers, both dropping swiftly until within seconds they reached zero and the machinery stopped. “Her heart was too damaged. It was her time.”  

 

Shattered, the daughter sobbed and stroked her mother’s hand. “Take me with you, Mama,” she cried. “I can’t live without you.”

 

From far away, she heard the doctor’s words, calm and self-assured. “You’re still young. You still have years and years of living ahead of you. Do you truly think that’s what your mother would want? For you to die too?” he said. 

 

Gasping the daughter dropped her mother’s hand and rubbed at the sudden pain radiating from her jaw to her shoulders and arms. Wide-eyed and breathless, she said, “Yes. I think she would.” 

 

 

NANOWRIMO 24 Day 1: Obituary

 NANOWRIMO 2024 Day 1

 

Topic: Write a story in the form of an obituary

 

My Savings Account

 

Today we mourn the death of My Savings Account. Once robust and full of life, MSA has suffered numerous assaults to its system in recent years. MSA’s death while not a blessing, was certainly expected. 

 

Born to a once monetarily conservative Primary Account Holder, MSA had a fairly boring upbringing. Interactions with PAH were quite infrequent, as birthday and holiday presents made up the majority of deposits, while withdrawals were few and far between. 

 

Once PAH hit 16, MSA grew by proverbial leaps and bounds, aided robustly by a weekly $6 paycheck provided by a well-known fast- food restaurant. There were few withdrawals and those were mainly to Filene’s Basement and the local Levi’s store 

 

From PAH’s 18 birthday until age 22, paycheck deposits became more sporadic, and came from an unpredictable variety of enterprises including retail establishments, local restaurants, newspapers, while withdrawals primarily supported the care and feeding of one particular college’s bookstore, as well as local pizza venues and liquor stores. MSA’s future certainly looked dim.

 

But as the years continued, deposits picked up and MSA experienced a renaissance of sorts, with the majority source being meager but steady public school department paychecks. These little drops of water, while certainly not helpful in creating an ocean, were useful in building a pleasant, tiny pond that could perhaps one day host a small rowboat or an inexpensive kayak. 

 

A decade ago, an alarming trend began to emerge, as payments to local running stores, race organizations, physical therapists, wineries, hotels, breweries, and airlines began to flow steeply upward, while school department deposits remained annoyingly and depressingly flat despite rising inflation. Still, brave little MSA stayed remarkably steady, truly an example of persistence, like the little engine that could, only maybe a little weaker. 

 

Deposits from several retail establishments helped to stave off the inevitable for a number of years, but it recently became evident that MSA was nearing the end of life. Feeble attempts were made to stanch the bleeding with cutbacks to cable channel subscriptions, gas and electric companies. But at the same time, PAH spending continued to increase, now in terms of overseas travel and souvenir shopping in addition to all the other running related frippery. 

 

As MSA took its last breaths, PAH seemed blissfully unaware, and was heard to quote Bon Jovi.  “It’s only money. I want to live while I’m alive,” she said as she limped her way onto a plane to travel to the starting line of her next marathon. 

 

MSA is survived by No Regrets, It’s Only A Hill, Friends All Over The World, and an army of physical therapists demanding payment. There will be no memorial service. PAH says she can’t afford it. Her credit cards are maxed out. 

My Savings Account

 

Today we mourn the death of My Savings Account. Once robust and full of life, MSA has suffered numerous assaults to its system in recent years. MSA’s death while not a blessing, was certainly expected. 

 

Born to a once monetarily conservative Primary Account Holder, MSA had a fairly boring upbringing. Interactions with PAH were quite infrequent, as birthday and holiday presents made up the majority of deposits, while withdrawals were few and far between. 

 

Once PAH hit 16, MSA grew by proverbial leaps and bounds, aided robustly by a weekly $6 paycheck provided by a well-known fast- food restaurant. There were few withdrawals and those were mainly to Filene’s Basement and the local Levi’s store 

 

From PAH’s 18 birthday until age 22, paycheck deposits became more sporadic, and came from an unpredictable variety of enterprises including retail establishments, local restaurants, newspapers, while withdrawals primarily supported the care and feeding of one particular college’s bookstore, as well as local pizza venues and liquor stores. MSA’s future certainly looked dim.

 

But as the years continued, deposits picked up and MSA experienced a renaissance of sorts, with the majority source being meager but steady public school department paychecks. These little drops of water, while certainly not helpful in creating an ocean, were useful in building a pleasant, tiny pond that could perhaps one day host a small rowboat or an inexpensive kayak. 

 

A decade ago, an alarming trend began to emerge, as payments to local running stores, race organizations, physical therapists, wineries, hotels, breweries, and airlines began to flow steeply upward, while school department deposits remained annoyingly and depressingly flat despite rising inflation. Still, brave little MSA stayed remarkably steady, truly an example of persistence, like the little engine that could, only maybe a little weaker. 

 

Deposits from several retail establishments helped to stave off the inevitable for a number of years, but it recently became evident that MSA was nearing the end of life. Feeble attempts were made to stanch the bleeding with cutbacks to cable channel subscriptions, gas and electric companies. But at the same time, PAH spending continued to increase, now in terms of overseas travel and souvenir shopping in addition to all the other running related frippery. 

 

As MSA took its last breaths, PAH seemed blissfully unaware, and was heard to quote Bon Jovi.  “It’s only money. I want to live while I’m alive,” she said as she limped her way onto a plane to travel to the starting line of her next marathon. 

 

MSA is survived by No Regrets, It’s Only A Hill, Friends All Over The World, and an army of physical therapists demanding payment. There will be no memorial service. PAH says she can’t afford it. Her credit cards are maxed out. 

 

 

 #flashfiction

#nanowrimo2024

#nancystohlman