Table of Contents Ascension of the Leper To learn more about Leo Tolstoy:
The Write Stories
The Write Poetry
Critique of the Month
Learn From the Masters
The Write "Stuff"
You may submit poetry or stories to be critiqued by emailing them to littleal87@aol.com with "To Critique" in the subject line. You may also submit stories for this section without having them critiqued.
Part Three
C. Martinez [straightrazor99]
Christmas was a week away, and Craig was threading popcorn onto a string, and handing it to Dottie to hang on the tree he had decided to decorate in his room. His hands no longer trembled as they had weeks before, and to his surprise, he had put on ten pounds since the beginning of November. Also, he was able to walk around the room, with either Dottie or a cane close by. Because he spent more time sitting, or standing, the fluid in his lungs that had nearly drowned him in the past months had thinned, making breathing a great deal easier, and offering him energy that he had lacked before. The infection in his lungs subsided as he ate more and began moving around. He felt hopeful that time would mend him, but the truth according to recent reports still weighed on him.
Dorothy Isley was the oldest of seven children, and since both her parents worked to support the family, she had become a mother to her younger siblings. Much like many of the women she knew, she was born into the role as care-taker, and flourished through it. Coming to America in the early Seventies, she found a land that was alive with new opportunities, and a wide range of ways in which to better herself and the life of her family. Because science came so easily to her, and she was a natural nurturer, nursing was an easy way to grow. She promised herself many times to treat it like a job, and she had for many years, however, she was not a robot. It became increasingly hard to walk away from her work, and when the job became too personal, she decided to leave the hospital, and work privately. Months ago, she was invited to care for a wealthy man who was quickly expiring. In her thinking, it would be easy money, and minimal emotions involved. Thinking back on it, she realized how nave she was.
The man sat on the bed, his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth, his eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration as he tried to thread a tiny needle through an elusive popcorn kernel. His blue eyes sparkled, and a bead of sweat ran down his temple. Dottie envisioned a younger, more vibrant Craig concentrating with the same intensity as this adult did now. She affectionately sighed, and turned back to her work. She could hear him humming "Jingle Bells" under his breath, and she smiled. His song was interrupted by a heavy cough, and a sudden wave of sadness washed over her. Dottie turned and looked at Craig, who had returned to his chore, just as determined and focused as he had been before. She realized, maybe for the first time, that she cared for him a great deal.
" Dottie, what is Christmas like in your country?" Craig asked suddenly, tossing a kernel of popcorn into his mouth. "Do you guys string popcorn onto palm trees?" He teased her, and she made a face at him, glad that he had brought her back from her thoughts.
" You'd be surprised to find out that we celebrate it very similarly, with small differences, of course. But no, Santa is not a Rastafarian in a linen suit pulled by donkeys along the beach."
They laughed together and she strung the popcorn on a high branch.
Craig had learned to trust her. She had been his only remaining friend. Even his mother had begun to stop visiting him, and he knew why. Although he was making small strides forward, he was degrading fast. He knew this, and having Dottie's strength was a great comfort when he most felt like getting back into the bed and waiting.
He could rely on her playful jibes and sarcasm to save him from feeling too sorry for himself for too long. She showed him pictures of her family back in Jamaica, and he learned that one reason she took this job was to pay to bring her family to the Unites States.
" So, Mr. Simmons, I don't think you ever told me what you did before you got sick." In the time they spent together, they never said the word AIDS, but the word hung like a ghost in the air.
" I was a real estate broker. I bought and sold those buildings that line the sky outside that window." He smiled, feeling proud to be able to say that.
" That is quite impressive, Mr. Simmons. Is that how you were able to afford to live in this place?"
He laughed. " No, my parents were entrepreneurs when the City was coming back from The
" I imagine you enjoyed it very well." She smiled at him, but he grew rather serious.
" Yeah. I enjoyed a lot of things." He sat on the bed and continued to thread popcorn.
She folded her hands over her lap, and sat across from him, feeling the tension in the room. He clumsily strung the kernels of popped corn, silent for a long minute. He spoke without looking up; a gesture she assumed made it easier for him.
" The doctors didn't know what it was at first. Hell, I'm not a homo-"
She shifted when he said that and he cleared his throat.
" I am not gay, and I am not a junkie, so they had no idea what it was."
Dorothy nodded, having heard that statement many times in recent years.
" At first they thought it was just a string of sickness. They told me to eat better and avoid drafts. But when I had a cold that became a bronchial infection, and it lasted five weekswell, they knew there was a problem. I had AIDS."
She watched as he spoke, realizing that this may have been the first time he said these words out loud since he heard them himself. He shrugged, as if he was casual about it, and then repeated, "I have AIDS."
There was a long silence, and then he put aside the popcorn string and lifted his feet into the bed. He stared out the window. " Dorothy, you don't have to come back until after Christmas. I'm sure you have a lot to do at home to get ready."
She stopped treading (threading) her own popcorn string and watched him. He dropped his head into his hands, and began to cry. At first it was a low, sad sound, but then his entire body began to shake with despair and utter fear. Loud sobs came from deep within him, and he was agonized by the reality that had just struck him.
Dorothy slipped her arms over his shoulders, and he pressed his face against her chest, tears instantly soaking her white blouse.
Craig buried his face into Dottie's chest, and his hands gripped her, desperate to escape the cold loneliness that his sadness created. A deep void was exposed in him, and the pain it caused terrified him. His mind raced through distorted loops and twisted glimpses of clarity and depths of utter confusion.
" I'm so scaredI don't want to dieI don't want to dieit's not fair." He repeated this lament until the words faded into muffled crying, and his body went limp against her.
The Nurse (nurse) rubbed his back softly, allowing him to cry until he ran out of tears. When he had quieted, she pushed him away to look him in the face.
" Mr. Simmons, we are not given the choice on whether we will or will not die. Only God can make that decision. But we can decide how we die. That does not mean we can choose whether or not the train runs us over, or the stray bullet strikes us, or the virus ravages our bodiesit means we can die with the wisdom of a life lived or die regretting the ignorance we never remedied." She wiped a tear from his cheek, and brushed a hair from his forehead.
" Fear, teaches us. But when we mistake that fear for the lesson, we become paralyzed. I beg of you, Mr. Simmons, look beyond the terror you feel for the things that you are yet to learn."
His initial reaction was rage. She had found a way to make him feel wrong to feel betrayed. In his thinking, Dorothy Isley was stripping him of his last consolation: self-pity. Yet, as he looked into her warm eyes, he saw warmth that he could not ignore. She was the last remaining human in his life. Whenever he needed to be nurtured, she was the only one who offered it. In this, he realized that she was not ignoring his natural feelings. Perhaps, as he realized, she was doing for him what he most needed understood that she was not abandoning him, she was standing strong and trying to make him do the same for himself.
Craig slipped under his sheets, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw Dorothy wrapping a blanket in gold wrapping paper. She taped a Christmas card to the bundle, and placed it under the tiny tree that was in the corner, near the window. He smiled to himself, then went back to sleep.
As his condition worsened, his mother hired a nurse to come nights. She was a young student from Chile and Craig took an instant dislike for her. They never spoke, and she spent a majority of the time doing her homework quietly in a far corner.
To be continued in future issues of The Write Stuff's newsletter...
THE WRITE POETRY
"These Aren't My Eyes"
[jonathankearxxx]
We walk around in a small house,
Of closed doors and locked windows.
It holds us at bay with its walls
And teaches us right from wrong.
We see a perfect world of free life
Through the barred glass of our prison.
We sit inside staring hopefully at a world
That we cannot truly hold in our hands.
Even though we stand eternally chained,
With a false will to carry on going,
We can still be free from a world of
Artificial existence that holds us down.
All we need to do is to close our eyes.
Here the locks are broken and the walls
Have been torn down for us to see
For ourselves that there are no limits here.
In this place we can see what we want,
We do not have to be blindfolded in a place
That does not know imprisonment.
It is this place that we are truly free: our minds.
Out of Hatred
By: Norma Oropeza [verbalartistjr]
We made plans for that night:
Dinner, a dance, a date, or to come home to our children.
But how were we to know
We would never make it?
But that would not be our fault.
Our only intention was to earn our daily bread.
How?
By working at the World Trade Center.
We weren't gangsters and we weren't mafia;
We were simple working people,
And it's hard to believe that terrorists would murder us.
Out of hatred they ruined our lives.
But what lives?
We are now dead.
Out of hatred.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Soft fingers combing through my hair
Thank you for your apathy.
Knowing eyes that send a shiver down my spine,
Even as they warm me with their understanding
Know too much.
Thank you for knowing too little.
Caressing smile
Bright and new
Laughing as it held me captivated
Thank you for releasing me.
Words that sink themselves into me like teeth,
Biting me to my core, strangely satisfying,
Leaving toothmarks, red and blistered
Thank you for bursting my blister.
I've got you under wraps.
Thank you for being there;
Thank you for leaving.
Thank you for dragging me along;
Thank you for leaving me behind.
Thank you.
STAGNATION
If you fail, try again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Claw at the brick wall,
Complain about the things you can't change.
Shoot for the moon,
And at the very least you'll land flat on your ass.
STAGNATION
Yelp, and no one will hear you wail.
Settle for less,
Curb creativity,
Conform.
Be a magician,
Dancing on tiptoe
Pulling rabbits
Returning home to cry
Over failed dreams.
STAGNATION
Be happy that others
Are satisfied with their
Superficial existence.
Never seek a soulmate
Never pursue dreams
Never try to make a difference
Because before you know it,
You'll be shooting for the moon,
And falling flat on your face.
CRITIQUE OF THE MONTH
This month there will not be an additional critique because the selection for The Write Stories section was been critiqued although it was placed in a different section.
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS
Leo Tolstoy was likely Russia's greatest novelest, writing in the late nineteenth century of contemporary life and societal issues; his work has resonated throughout time.
"Russian author, one of the greatest of all novelists. Tolstoy's major works include War and Peace (1863-69), characterized by Henry James as a 'loose baggy monster,' and Anna Karenina (1875-77), which stands alongside Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest as perhaps the most prominent 19th-century European novel of adultery. [Tolstoy] once said, 'The one thing is necessary, in life as in art, is to tell the truth.' Tolstoy's life in often seen to form two distinct parts: first comes the author of great novels, and later a prophet and moral reformer."
--http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ltolstoi.htm
"Later in life, Tolstoy formulated a unique Christian philosophy which espoused non-resistance to evil as the proper response to aggression, and which put great emphasis on fair treatment of the poor and working class. Tolstoy also gave a strong plea for Christians to reject the State when seeking answers to questions of morality and instead to look within themselves and to God for their answers."
--http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tolstoy/
http://www.ltolstoy.com
http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Tolstoy/
http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ltolstoi.htm
http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tolstoy/\
Tutalooms
Is it about to rain?
The clouds are not gray
So what do I feel trickling down my leg?
Tutalooms
Yeah, thats right.
How could this be happening?
I just made some last night
Its soft but hard
Mushy yet soupy
I could tell this is gonna be a big dukey
One came down, then another
It smelled so bad
I called my mother
I yelled, "I have a surprise!"
"Come to the bathroom and close your eyes."
She came in a hurry, and what did she see?
A smell so foul she fell to her knees
She said, "You idiot, dont talk to me again."
I laughed so hard my tutalooms came to an end
The tissue falls on the floor
Im such a klutz
Thats what happens
When you have Bubble Guts
princessisacha@aol.com
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