Reality
By Christie Cottom
I remember smelling the fragrance of freedom in the subtle breeze,
sweat from my perfect thighs rolling off the seat.
Baby blue clouds off in the distance,
alone by myself, no children in existence.
I glance in the rearview mirror and see my lost identity
The person I had a chance to become but was derailed with the death of my virginity.
Rays of sunshine meeting my face felt so lovely,
I was eighteen again without having to be motherly.
People all around, cars bumper to bumper,
Pull up to an awe-inspiring cottage on the water.
Climb out and remember that there are no car seats to unlatch,
no kids to tell “quiet or else you’re taking a nap!”.
Oh how easy life feels, careless and young,
beautiful soft hair, and a tight perfect bum.
While bathing in the sun, a startling siren alarms
I sit up and four familiar children appear,
I tell them they aren’t mine and they then look at me with fear.
Suddenly I feel cold and excess weight on my body,
Open my eyes and there I lay in my bed, no longer a hotty.
Deceived by my dreams of what my life might have been,
I feel raped by reality and heart broken.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Revised poem
Lonely Child
By Christie Cottom
She was alone as usual with no one to guide her.
A family of six but where they were, she had no idea.
There she laid in the darkness, with her hands together, praying for a second chance.
Her stomach ached of nausea with knowing she would only be more of a disappointment.
Her sighs and moans crying for forgiveness.
But no one was there to even be disappointed.
She was only fifteen, scared and pregnant.
Carrying a daughter of her own but longing to belong as one her own.
Her pillow case now saturated with wet worries and disbelief.
She found the strength to stand on her feet.
With blood shot eyes and wobbly knees she walked the halls of the house her family called a home.
She yelled out for her mother but no response.
The sound of her barefoot steps on the wood floor was the only familiar sound she often heard.
Only the echoes of empty rooms and belongings of people she barley knew.
She held her arms tight to her abdomen and continued to walk as she felt her baby move.
Just then she realized that she was no longer crippled with being blue.
Somebody was actually with her in that cold frightful place.
She stood up tall and wiped away the tears and chose to no longer look for her long lost mother.
The halls now warm and her loneliness disappeared.
Smiling from a glow that she once feared.
She promises her baby girl she will never be abandoned.
They lay back down together with both hearts beating in sync.
Her anguish surrendered, her heartache soothed, she found her happiness’s lost link.
She’s no longer a child with a secret and no longer alone
No more desperate sorrows to be shown, all holes in her emptiness sewn.
By Christie Cottom
She was alone as usual with no one to guide her.
A family of six but where they were, she had no idea.
There she laid in the darkness, with her hands together, praying for a second chance.
Her stomach ached of nausea with knowing she would only be more of a disappointment.
Her sighs and moans crying for forgiveness.
But no one was there to even be disappointed.
She was only fifteen, scared and pregnant.
Carrying a daughter of her own but longing to belong as one her own.
Her pillow case now saturated with wet worries and disbelief.
She found the strength to stand on her feet.
With blood shot eyes and wobbly knees she walked the halls of the house her family called a home.
She yelled out for her mother but no response.
The sound of her barefoot steps on the wood floor was the only familiar sound she often heard.
Only the echoes of empty rooms and belongings of people she barley knew.
She held her arms tight to her abdomen and continued to walk as she felt her baby move.
Just then she realized that she was no longer crippled with being blue.
Somebody was actually with her in that cold frightful place.
She stood up tall and wiped away the tears and chose to no longer look for her long lost mother.
The halls now warm and her loneliness disappeared.
Smiling from a glow that she once feared.
She promises her baby girl she will never be abandoned.
They lay back down together with both hearts beating in sync.
Her anguish surrendered, her heartache soothed, she found her happiness’s lost link.
She’s no longer a child with a secret and no longer alone
No more desperate sorrows to be shown, all holes in her emptiness sewn.
Dear Gary
Dear Gary,
I must begin by explaining how much I feel I have been challenged over the course of this class. I now have a new perspective on creative writing through short stories and poetry, that I never thought existed. I would be lying if I said this class was easy because it was not at all a breeze. The journey from the beginning to end was a difficult one for me. Although challenging, I am pleased to have experienced and learned what has made me a stronger writer.
My fictional writing has improved by applying the use of better form and use of dialogue, clear choice of words, stronger plot and perspectives. Assignment and readings in our text were a vital part of improvement. Using the journal assignment in fiction writing and the details of life around was a fun way to develop details. Short story and prose practice required influential details and concrete use of words to describe the point of the story. Short story or prose was a nice transition to poetry.
Poetry was by far my favorite part of class. I enjoyed learning how to become more poetic and musical by avoiding the assumption that poetry must rhyme. Alliteration, assonance and other musical devices showed me that I can provide more attractive pieces that I wasn’t aware that I could produce.
In closing, I would like to thank you for inducing change and development the past several weeks. There were times I was quite frustrated but now understand the importance of critique and hard work. I feel that I have accomplished a lot of hard work and truly apprectiate the world of creative writing on a much more intimate level.
Sincerely,
Christie Cottom
I must begin by explaining how much I feel I have been challenged over the course of this class. I now have a new perspective on creative writing through short stories and poetry, that I never thought existed. I would be lying if I said this class was easy because it was not at all a breeze. The journey from the beginning to end was a difficult one for me. Although challenging, I am pleased to have experienced and learned what has made me a stronger writer.
My fictional writing has improved by applying the use of better form and use of dialogue, clear choice of words, stronger plot and perspectives. Assignment and readings in our text were a vital part of improvement. Using the journal assignment in fiction writing and the details of life around was a fun way to develop details. Short story and prose practice required influential details and concrete use of words to describe the point of the story. Short story or prose was a nice transition to poetry.
Poetry was by far my favorite part of class. I enjoyed learning how to become more poetic and musical by avoiding the assumption that poetry must rhyme. Alliteration, assonance and other musical devices showed me that I can provide more attractive pieces that I wasn’t aware that I could produce.
In closing, I would like to thank you for inducing change and development the past several weeks. There were times I was quite frustrated but now understand the importance of critique and hard work. I feel that I have accomplished a lot of hard work and truly apprectiate the world of creative writing on a much more intimate level.
Sincerely,
Christie Cottom
Mary's Answer Final Draft
Mary’s Answer
Mary wakes up every morning around five am, she keeps the same routine she has had now for the past ten years, since she and her husband separated. Mary stayed distant from any meaningful relationship in her life, loneliness was a regular emotion.
She lives underneath her mother’s house in a basement that she calls an apartment. She constructed the space at her own speed, it took seven weeks to install a kitchen counter and sink. The apartment is moldy and damp and filled with a thin fog of cheap cigarette smoke, from the carton cigarettes her ex-husband drops off for her weekly. The ceilings are low, barely six and half feet high and made of thin, stained material.
As a child, Mary learned to not expect too much, in fear that she be let down. After she cooks, there are drops of condensation that fall from the metal beams above her head. She never complains of the apartment’s imperfections, yet she dreams that someday after her mother passes, to build a cabin in a remote area down south, with the money she will inherit.
She keeps to herself, never many visitors. She rarely leaves, only to get groceries for the month. Her mother, Irene, is her exact opposite. She is seldom at home, eighty five and a social butterfly. She gets her hair fixed in rollers every Friday at the same beauty shop she has gone to since 1950. Mary hears her mother leave every morning, never later than seven o’clock. The big white metal door slams and the Christmas bells they never removed off the door knob from last Christmas, jingle like Santa’s in the room himself. Mary never wonders where her mother plans to spend her day, and only continues on with her dull existence.
She is detached from Irene, a nonexistent bond that fastens a mother and daughter that most hold dear. Her mother always warned her that she wouldn’t amount to much, not so much directly in words, rather indirectly with subtle comments. Mary no longer desires a relationship with Irene, but was pained by the natural relationship her mother once had with her younger brother. Paul has since deceased due to a drug overdose, which wasn’t a shock to Mary the morning the police knocked on the front door.
Mary would picture her mother kissing her before bed and snubbing the brother just once. She would picture smirking over at her brother and enjoying the moment, as she felt important and him not so much. She believes her mother is at fault for his death. Irene never punished him, even after finding bags of marijuana in her closet when he was selling dope to the neighborhood. Mary would rat her brother in but only be scolded.
Frequent thoughts of her mother’s abandonment were fresh in her mind that day. Fantasies of someday toppling her mother over by describing her neglected childhood were often visited. She wanted Irene to feel pain, the kind of pain that burned from the inside out.
Mary is overweight but not round, her shape resembles one of a man’s. She once had blonde short hair, but the roots are now light silver and the length is past her shoulders. It is usually knotty and looks like it hasn’t been conditioned for decades.
Shortly after Mary wakes, she scuffles over her feet, which are covered by dirty, weathered slippers, into the kitchen to brew a cup a coffee where she enjoys her first of twenty cigarettes for the day. Her computer screen usually has a game idling, the same game that caused her husband to feel abandoned in their marriage, which lasted twenty five years.
As Mary takes her first sip of coffee, she sits at the computer to open the mail her mother had brought down, from yesterday. She shuffles through the envelopes noticing an unusual pale blue colored envelope, with a cursive hand written return address. The return address was labeled Oak Grove Kentucky. She opens the letter with dull curiosity, to find a black and white picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a receiving blanket. The baby is held by a young girl that appeared to be the mother of the child. She stares into the picture, marveling at the expression the mother has in her eyes while holding the child, but still does not recognize who they are.
Something seemed different between the two in the picture, when she compared their natural relation with the one her and Irene never experienced. She flips the picture over and reads the same hand writing that appears on the envelope that first caught her attention.
She reads” My sweet angel girl 1954”. She glances down to the right hand corner she read out loud “a phone number 802-433-2091”.
Perplexed and overwhelmed with fear, Mary reaches her right hand into her robe and pulled out a black flip phone and eagerly dials the number she read. She put the phone to her right ear and counts the number of rings in her head. At the other end she hears an unfamiliar voice say
“Hello”, the person at the other end waits for Mary‘s response.
“Hello!” Mary repeats, “this is Mary O’Neil, may I ask who this is” She hears a silent cry at the other end. She watches as the smoke from her cigarette curls into the air.
Then from the unfamiliar voice she hears with a weak desperate tone say, “Mary…Mary, I’m just goanna come right out and tell you who I am, you don’t remember me but I am your birth mother”.
Mary quickly slaps both ends of the flip phone together and hangs up. Her respirations now irregular and fast, she is flooded with blissful emotion for the first time in her life. Like a damn that has been barricading a section of her soul she never knew how to permeate. Any chance other than being the daughter of the cold woman that lives above her, made her overjoyed. Mary wasn’t sure what she would do next, she wondered if there was nothing else she need. Everything seemed to make sense, she no longer felt guilty for hating Irene rather she was ready to confront her true perceptions for the first time.
Mary wakes up every morning around five am, she keeps the same routine she has had now for the past ten years, since she and her husband separated. Mary stayed distant from any meaningful relationship in her life, loneliness was a regular emotion.
She lives underneath her mother’s house in a basement that she calls an apartment. She constructed the space at her own speed, it took seven weeks to install a kitchen counter and sink. The apartment is moldy and damp and filled with a thin fog of cheap cigarette smoke, from the carton cigarettes her ex-husband drops off for her weekly. The ceilings are low, barely six and half feet high and made of thin, stained material.
As a child, Mary learned to not expect too much, in fear that she be let down. After she cooks, there are drops of condensation that fall from the metal beams above her head. She never complains of the apartment’s imperfections, yet she dreams that someday after her mother passes, to build a cabin in a remote area down south, with the money she will inherit.
She keeps to herself, never many visitors. She rarely leaves, only to get groceries for the month. Her mother, Irene, is her exact opposite. She is seldom at home, eighty five and a social butterfly. She gets her hair fixed in rollers every Friday at the same beauty shop she has gone to since 1950. Mary hears her mother leave every morning, never later than seven o’clock. The big white metal door slams and the Christmas bells they never removed off the door knob from last Christmas, jingle like Santa’s in the room himself. Mary never wonders where her mother plans to spend her day, and only continues on with her dull existence.
She is detached from Irene, a nonexistent bond that fastens a mother and daughter that most hold dear. Her mother always warned her that she wouldn’t amount to much, not so much directly in words, rather indirectly with subtle comments. Mary no longer desires a relationship with Irene, but was pained by the natural relationship her mother once had with her younger brother. Paul has since deceased due to a drug overdose, which wasn’t a shock to Mary the morning the police knocked on the front door.
Mary would picture her mother kissing her before bed and snubbing the brother just once. She would picture smirking over at her brother and enjoying the moment, as she felt important and him not so much. She believes her mother is at fault for his death. Irene never punished him, even after finding bags of marijuana in her closet when he was selling dope to the neighborhood. Mary would rat her brother in but only be scolded.
Frequent thoughts of her mother’s abandonment were fresh in her mind that day. Fantasies of someday toppling her mother over by describing her neglected childhood were often visited. She wanted Irene to feel pain, the kind of pain that burned from the inside out.
Mary is overweight but not round, her shape resembles one of a man’s. She once had blonde short hair, but the roots are now light silver and the length is past her shoulders. It is usually knotty and looks like it hasn’t been conditioned for decades.
Shortly after Mary wakes, she scuffles over her feet, which are covered by dirty, weathered slippers, into the kitchen to brew a cup a coffee where she enjoys her first of twenty cigarettes for the day. Her computer screen usually has a game idling, the same game that caused her husband to feel abandoned in their marriage, which lasted twenty five years.
As Mary takes her first sip of coffee, she sits at the computer to open the mail her mother had brought down, from yesterday. She shuffles through the envelopes noticing an unusual pale blue colored envelope, with a cursive hand written return address. The return address was labeled Oak Grove Kentucky. She opens the letter with dull curiosity, to find a black and white picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a receiving blanket. The baby is held by a young girl that appeared to be the mother of the child. She stares into the picture, marveling at the expression the mother has in her eyes while holding the child, but still does not recognize who they are.
Something seemed different between the two in the picture, when she compared their natural relation with the one her and Irene never experienced. She flips the picture over and reads the same hand writing that appears on the envelope that first caught her attention.
She reads” My sweet angel girl 1954”. She glances down to the right hand corner she read out loud “a phone number 802-433-2091”.
Perplexed and overwhelmed with fear, Mary reaches her right hand into her robe and pulled out a black flip phone and eagerly dials the number she read. She put the phone to her right ear and counts the number of rings in her head. At the other end she hears an unfamiliar voice say
“Hello”, the person at the other end waits for Mary‘s response.
“Hello!” Mary repeats, “this is Mary O’Neil, may I ask who this is” She hears a silent cry at the other end. She watches as the smoke from her cigarette curls into the air.
Then from the unfamiliar voice she hears with a weak desperate tone say, “Mary…Mary, I’m just goanna come right out and tell you who I am, you don’t remember me but I am your birth mother”.
Mary quickly slaps both ends of the flip phone together and hangs up. Her respirations now irregular and fast, she is flooded with blissful emotion for the first time in her life. Like a damn that has been barricading a section of her soul she never knew how to permeate. Any chance other than being the daughter of the cold woman that lives above her, made her overjoyed. Mary wasn’t sure what she would do next, she wondered if there was nothing else she need. Everything seemed to make sense, she no longer felt guilty for hating Irene rather she was ready to confront her true perceptions for the first time.
Mary's Answer original
Mary’s Answer
Mary wakes up every morning around five am, she keeps the same routine she has had now for the past ten years, since she and her husband separated. She lives underneath her mother’s house, in a basement that she calls an apartment. She constructed the space at her own speed, it took seven weeks to install a kitchen counter and sink. The apartment is moldy and damp and filled with a thin fog of cheap cigarette smoke from the carton cigarettes her ex-husband drops off for her weekly. The ceilings are low, barely six and half feet high and made of thin, stained material. After she cooks, there are drops of condensation that fall from the metal beams above her head. She never complains of the apartment’s imperfections, yet she dreams that someday after her mother passes, to build a cabin in a remote area down south, with the money she will inherit. She keeps to herself, never many visitors. She rarely leaves, only to get groceries for the month. Her mother, Irene, is her exact opposite. She is seldom at home, eighty five and a social butterfly. She gets her hair fixed in rollers every Friday at the same beauty shop she has gone to since 1950. Mary hears her mother leave every morning, never later than seven o’clock. The big white metal door slams and the Christmas bells they never removed off the door knob from last Christmas, jingle like Santa’s in the room himself. Mary never wonders where her mother plans to spend her day, and only continues on with her dull existence. She is detached from Irene, a nonexistent bond that fastens a mother and daughter that most hold dear. Mary no longer desires a relationship with Irene, but was jealous of the natural relationship her mother once had with her younger brother, Paul, who has since deceased due to a drug overdose. She believes her mother is at fault for his death. Irene never punished him, even after finding bags of marijuana in her closet when he was selling dope to the neighborhood. Mary would rat her brother in but only be scolded.
Mary is overweight but not round, her shape resembles one of a man’s. She once had blonde short hair, but the roots are now light silver and the length is past her shoulders. It is usually knotty and looks like it hasn’t been conditioned for decades.
Shortly after Mary wakes, she scuffles over her feet, which are covered by dirty, weathered slippers, into the kitchen to brew a cup a coffee where she enjoys her first of twenty cigarettes for the day. Her computer screen usually has a game idling, the same game that caused her husband to feel abandoned in their marriage, which lasted twenty five years.
As Mary takes her first sip of coffee, she sits at the computer to open the mail her mother had brought down, from yesterday. She shuffles through the envelopes noticing an unusual pale blue colored envelope with a cursive, hand written return address, from Oak Grove Kentucky. She opens the letter with dull curiosity, to find a black and white picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a receiving blanket, being held by a young girl that appeared to be the mother of the child. She stares into the picture, marveling at the expression the mother has in her eyes while holding the child but still does not recognize who they are. She flips the picture over and reads the same hand writing that appears on the envelope that first caught her attention.
She reads”My sweet angel girl 1954”. She glances down to the right hand corner she read outloud “a phone number 802-433-2091”.
Perplexed, she overwhelmed with fear that is somehow combined with joy. She reaches her right hand into her robe and pulled out a black flip phone and eagerly dials the number she read. She put the phone to her right ear and counts the number of rings in her head. At the other end she finally hears an unfamiliar voice say
“Hello”, the person at the other end waits for Mary‘s response.
“Hello!” Mary repeats, “this is Mary O’Neil, may I ask who this is” She hears a silent cry at the other end. She watches as the smoke from her cigarette curls into the air.
Then from the unfamiliar voice she hears with a weak desperate tone say, “Mary…Mary, I’m jus goanna come right out and tell you who I am, you don’t remember me but I am your birth mother”.
Mary quickly slaps both ends of the flip phone together and hangs up. Her respirations now irregular and fast, she is flooded with emotion for the first time in her life. Like a damn that has been barricading a section of her soul she never knew how to permeate.
Hi Christie,
Your story about Mary fits the assignment parameters better. She, very clearly this time, is an ordinary character in a very ordinary setting who finds something extraordinary that changes her life in a small but very significant way: A LOT BETTER!! HOWEVER, b/c of the sentence errors throughout and the fact that your story is one long paragraph (review how, when, why we generate paragraphs) I cannot change your original grade of 5 pts. Sorry, but great second effort, which in my book is worth a lot more than crummy points in a class. It means you have integrity and character!!
Gary
Mary wakes up every morning around five am, she keeps the same routine she has had now for the past ten years, since she and her husband separated. She lives underneath her mother’s house, in a basement that she calls an apartment. She constructed the space at her own speed, it took seven weeks to install a kitchen counter and sink. The apartment is moldy and damp and filled with a thin fog of cheap cigarette smoke from the carton cigarettes her ex-husband drops off for her weekly. The ceilings are low, barely six and half feet high and made of thin, stained material. After she cooks, there are drops of condensation that fall from the metal beams above her head. She never complains of the apartment’s imperfections, yet she dreams that someday after her mother passes, to build a cabin in a remote area down south, with the money she will inherit. She keeps to herself, never many visitors. She rarely leaves, only to get groceries for the month. Her mother, Irene, is her exact opposite. She is seldom at home, eighty five and a social butterfly. She gets her hair fixed in rollers every Friday at the same beauty shop she has gone to since 1950. Mary hears her mother leave every morning, never later than seven o’clock. The big white metal door slams and the Christmas bells they never removed off the door knob from last Christmas, jingle like Santa’s in the room himself. Mary never wonders where her mother plans to spend her day, and only continues on with her dull existence. She is detached from Irene, a nonexistent bond that fastens a mother and daughter that most hold dear. Mary no longer desires a relationship with Irene, but was jealous of the natural relationship her mother once had with her younger brother, Paul, who has since deceased due to a drug overdose. She believes her mother is at fault for his death. Irene never punished him, even after finding bags of marijuana in her closet when he was selling dope to the neighborhood. Mary would rat her brother in but only be scolded.
Mary is overweight but not round, her shape resembles one of a man’s. She once had blonde short hair, but the roots are now light silver and the length is past her shoulders. It is usually knotty and looks like it hasn’t been conditioned for decades.
Shortly after Mary wakes, she scuffles over her feet, which are covered by dirty, weathered slippers, into the kitchen to brew a cup a coffee where she enjoys her first of twenty cigarettes for the day. Her computer screen usually has a game idling, the same game that caused her husband to feel abandoned in their marriage, which lasted twenty five years.
As Mary takes her first sip of coffee, she sits at the computer to open the mail her mother had brought down, from yesterday. She shuffles through the envelopes noticing an unusual pale blue colored envelope with a cursive, hand written return address, from Oak Grove Kentucky. She opens the letter with dull curiosity, to find a black and white picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a receiving blanket, being held by a young girl that appeared to be the mother of the child. She stares into the picture, marveling at the expression the mother has in her eyes while holding the child but still does not recognize who they are. She flips the picture over and reads the same hand writing that appears on the envelope that first caught her attention.
She reads”My sweet angel girl 1954”. She glances down to the right hand corner she read outloud “a phone number 802-433-2091”.
Perplexed, she overwhelmed with fear that is somehow combined with joy. She reaches her right hand into her robe and pulled out a black flip phone and eagerly dials the number she read. She put the phone to her right ear and counts the number of rings in her head. At the other end she finally hears an unfamiliar voice say
“Hello”, the person at the other end waits for Mary‘s response.
“Hello!” Mary repeats, “this is Mary O’Neil, may I ask who this is” She hears a silent cry at the other end. She watches as the smoke from her cigarette curls into the air.
Then from the unfamiliar voice she hears with a weak desperate tone say, “Mary…Mary, I’m jus goanna come right out and tell you who I am, you don’t remember me but I am your birth mother”.
Mary quickly slaps both ends of the flip phone together and hangs up. Her respirations now irregular and fast, she is flooded with emotion for the first time in her life. Like a damn that has been barricading a section of her soul she never knew how to permeate.
Hi Christie,
Your story about Mary fits the assignment parameters better. She, very clearly this time, is an ordinary character in a very ordinary setting who finds something extraordinary that changes her life in a small but very significant way: A LOT BETTER!! HOWEVER, b/c of the sentence errors throughout and the fact that your story is one long paragraph (review how, when, why we generate paragraphs) I cannot change your original grade of 5 pts. Sorry, but great second effort, which in my book is worth a lot more than crummy points in a class. It means you have integrity and character!!
Gary
Revising Fiction Assignment
1. How to keep narrative moving forward: U=forward D=isn’t moving forward, following the sentences.
2. Pg 199, opening up the story: Her mother always warned her that… Something seemed different…As a child she had learned…
3. Magnifying conflict, pg 212 : pink
4. Pg 150, abstract ideas to life: injustice and jealousy
Mary’s Answer
Mary wakes up every morning around five am, she keeps the same routine she has had now for the past ten years, since she and her husband separated.(U) Mary stayed separated from any meaningful relationship she came close to having in her life, loneliness was a regular emotion. She lives underneath her mother’s house, in a basement that she calls an apartment. She constructed the space at her own speed, it took seven weeks to install a kitchen counter and sink.(D) The apartment is moldy and damp and filled with a thin fog of cheap cigarette smoke from the carton cigarettes her ex-husband drops off for her weekly. The ceilings are low, barely six and half feet high and made of thin, stained material. As a child Mary learned to not expect too much, in fear that she be let down. After she cooks, there are drops of condensation that fall from the metal beams above her head.(D) She never complains of the apartment’s imperfections, yet she dreams that someday after her mother passes, to build a cabin in a remote area down south, with the money she will inherit. She keeps to herself, never many visitors.(U) She rarely leaves, only to get groceries for the month. Her mother, Irene, is her exact opposite.(U) She is seldom at home, eighty five and a social butterfly. She gets her hair fixed in rollers every Friday at the same beauty shop she has gone to since 1950.(D) Mary hears her mother leave every morning, never later than seven o’clock. The big white metal door slams and the Christmas bells they never removed off the door knob from last Christmas, jingle like Santa’s in the room himself.(D) Mary never wonders where her mother plans to spend her day, and only continues on with her dull existence. She is detached from Irene, a nonexistent bond that fastens a mother and daughter that most hold dear. Her mother always warned her that she wouldn’t amount to much, not so much in a directly, rather indirectly with subtle comments. Mary no longer desires a relationship with Irene, but was pained by the natural relationship her mother once had with her younger brother. Paul has since deceased due to a drug overdose, which wasn’t a shock to Mary, the morning the police knocked on the front door. Mary would picture her mother kissing her before bed and snubbing the brother just once. She would picture smirking over at her brother and enjoying the moment, as she felt important and him not so much. She believes her mother is at fault for his death.(U) Irene never punished him, even after finding bags of marijuana in her closet when he was selling dope to the neighborhood. Mary would rat her brother in but only be scolded.(D) Frequent thoughts of her mothers abandonment were fresh in her mind that day. Fantasies of someday toppling her mother over by describing her neglected childhood were often visited. She wanted Irene to feel pain, the kind of pain that burned from the inside out.
Mary is overweight but not round, her shape resembles one of a man’s. She once had blonde short hair, but the roots are now light silver and the length is past her shoulders. It is usually knotty and looks like it hasn’t been conditioned for decades.
Shortly after Mary wakes, she scuffles over her feet, which are covered by dirty, weathered slippers, into the kitchen to brew a cup a coffee where she enjoys her first of twenty cigarettes for the day. Her computer screen usually has a game idling, the same game that caused her husband to feel abandoned in their marriage, which lasted twenty five years.(D)
As Mary takes her first sip of coffee, she sits at the computer to open the mail her mother had brought down, from yesterday. She shuffles through the envelopes noticing an unusual pale blue colored envelope with a cursive, hand written return address, from Oak Grove Kentucky. She opens the letter with dull curiosity, to find a black and white picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a receiving blanket, being held by a young girl that appeared to be the mother of the child.(U) She stares into the picture, marveling at the expression the mother has in her eyes while holding the child but still does not recognize who they are. Something seemed different between the two in the picture, when she compared their natural relation with the one her and Irene never experienced. She flips the picture over and reads the same hand writing that appears on the envelope that first caught her attention.(D)
She reads” My sweet angel girl 1954”. She glances down to the right hand corner she read out loud “a phone number 802-433-2091”.
Perplexed, she overwhelmed with fear that is somehow combined with joy. She reaches her right hand into her robe and pulled out a black flip phone and eagerly dials the number she read.(U) She put the phone to her right ear and counts the number of rings in her head. At the other end she finally hears an unfamiliar voice say
“Hello”, the person at the other end waits for Mary‘s response.
“Hello!” Mary repeats, “this is Mary O’Neil, may I ask who this is” She hears a silent cry at the other end. She watches as the smoke from her cigarette curls into the air.(D)
Then from the unfamiliar voice she hears with a weak desperate tone say, “Mary…Mary, I’m jus goanna come right out and tell you who I am, you don’t remember me but I am your birth mother”. (U)
Mary quickly slaps both ends of the flip phone together and hangs up. Her respirations now irregular and fast, she is flooded with blissful emotion for the first time in her life. Like a damn that has been barricading a section of her soul she never knew how to permeate. (D) Any chance other than being the daughter of the cold woman that lived above her made her overjoyed. Mary wasn’t sure what she would do next, she wondered if there was nothing else she need. Everything seemed to make sense, she no longer felt guilty for hating Irene rather she was ready to confront her true perceptions for the first time.
2. Pg 199, opening up the story: Her mother always warned her that… Something seemed different…As a child she had learned…
3. Magnifying conflict, pg 212 : pink
4. Pg 150, abstract ideas to life: injustice and jealousy
Mary’s Answer
Mary wakes up every morning around five am, she keeps the same routine she has had now for the past ten years, since she and her husband separated.(U) Mary stayed separated from any meaningful relationship she came close to having in her life, loneliness was a regular emotion. She lives underneath her mother’s house, in a basement that she calls an apartment. She constructed the space at her own speed, it took seven weeks to install a kitchen counter and sink.(D) The apartment is moldy and damp and filled with a thin fog of cheap cigarette smoke from the carton cigarettes her ex-husband drops off for her weekly. The ceilings are low, barely six and half feet high and made of thin, stained material. As a child Mary learned to not expect too much, in fear that she be let down. After she cooks, there are drops of condensation that fall from the metal beams above her head.(D) She never complains of the apartment’s imperfections, yet she dreams that someday after her mother passes, to build a cabin in a remote area down south, with the money she will inherit. She keeps to herself, never many visitors.(U) She rarely leaves, only to get groceries for the month. Her mother, Irene, is her exact opposite.(U) She is seldom at home, eighty five and a social butterfly. She gets her hair fixed in rollers every Friday at the same beauty shop she has gone to since 1950.(D) Mary hears her mother leave every morning, never later than seven o’clock. The big white metal door slams and the Christmas bells they never removed off the door knob from last Christmas, jingle like Santa’s in the room himself.(D) Mary never wonders where her mother plans to spend her day, and only continues on with her dull existence. She is detached from Irene, a nonexistent bond that fastens a mother and daughter that most hold dear. Her mother always warned her that she wouldn’t amount to much, not so much in a directly, rather indirectly with subtle comments. Mary no longer desires a relationship with Irene, but was pained by the natural relationship her mother once had with her younger brother. Paul has since deceased due to a drug overdose, which wasn’t a shock to Mary, the morning the police knocked on the front door. Mary would picture her mother kissing her before bed and snubbing the brother just once. She would picture smirking over at her brother and enjoying the moment, as she felt important and him not so much. She believes her mother is at fault for his death.(U) Irene never punished him, even after finding bags of marijuana in her closet when he was selling dope to the neighborhood. Mary would rat her brother in but only be scolded.(D) Frequent thoughts of her mothers abandonment were fresh in her mind that day. Fantasies of someday toppling her mother over by describing her neglected childhood were often visited. She wanted Irene to feel pain, the kind of pain that burned from the inside out.
Mary is overweight but not round, her shape resembles one of a man’s. She once had blonde short hair, but the roots are now light silver and the length is past her shoulders. It is usually knotty and looks like it hasn’t been conditioned for decades.
Shortly after Mary wakes, she scuffles over her feet, which are covered by dirty, weathered slippers, into the kitchen to brew a cup a coffee where she enjoys her first of twenty cigarettes for the day. Her computer screen usually has a game idling, the same game that caused her husband to feel abandoned in their marriage, which lasted twenty five years.(D)
As Mary takes her first sip of coffee, she sits at the computer to open the mail her mother had brought down, from yesterday. She shuffles through the envelopes noticing an unusual pale blue colored envelope with a cursive, hand written return address, from Oak Grove Kentucky. She opens the letter with dull curiosity, to find a black and white picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a receiving blanket, being held by a young girl that appeared to be the mother of the child.(U) She stares into the picture, marveling at the expression the mother has in her eyes while holding the child but still does not recognize who they are. Something seemed different between the two in the picture, when she compared their natural relation with the one her and Irene never experienced. She flips the picture over and reads the same hand writing that appears on the envelope that first caught her attention.(D)
She reads” My sweet angel girl 1954”. She glances down to the right hand corner she read out loud “a phone number 802-433-2091”.
Perplexed, she overwhelmed with fear that is somehow combined with joy. She reaches her right hand into her robe and pulled out a black flip phone and eagerly dials the number she read.(U) She put the phone to her right ear and counts the number of rings in her head. At the other end she finally hears an unfamiliar voice say
“Hello”, the person at the other end waits for Mary‘s response.
“Hello!” Mary repeats, “this is Mary O’Neil, may I ask who this is” She hears a silent cry at the other end. She watches as the smoke from her cigarette curls into the air.(D)
Then from the unfamiliar voice she hears with a weak desperate tone say, “Mary…Mary, I’m jus goanna come right out and tell you who I am, you don’t remember me but I am your birth mother”. (U)
Mary quickly slaps both ends of the flip phone together and hangs up. Her respirations now irregular and fast, she is flooded with blissful emotion for the first time in her life. Like a damn that has been barricading a section of her soul she never knew how to permeate. (D) Any chance other than being the daughter of the cold woman that lived above her made her overjoyed. Mary wasn’t sure what she would do next, she wondered if there was nothing else she need. Everything seemed to make sense, she no longer felt guilty for hating Irene rather she was ready to confront her true perceptions for the first time.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
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