Table of Contents Ascension of the Leper
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 Two
C. Martinez
Weeks passed in silence. She did what she could, adjusting his machines and keeping records of his progress or any notable changes at all. He was stubborn, but she felt it was not her place to quit because he didn't want her there. Even though she would spend hours just looking at him, or reading a book, she returned, eager to attend to him when he finally decided to let her. She would endure his hostile stares, scathing remarks, and blatant contempt for her with a warm smile, patience, and the occasional playful retort. It had become a small consolation to see him frustrated that he could not chase her away. After a while, she thought, he had stopped trying.
It was actually becoming clear that her persistence was wearing away at his angry veneer. There was several times in which her random comments made him smile, but he did well to hide it. His pain also made it easy to stay angry most of the time. She didn't expect him to ever come to like her, but she accepted that. Her job was to keep him comfortable and to attend to him, as he needed her to, not to be his friend.
The day started like the others, as Dorothy Isley knitted in her chair, Craig Simmons stared at the shadows on the far wall. He then turned and looked at her. Sensing his eyes, she looked up, pulling the glasses from her face and smiling lightly.
" May I have a cup of juice?" He had been too proud to ask any other day, but his throat ached from dryness, and his discomfort overruled his ego.
As if it were an everyday request, she set aside her things and rose, stretching a bit, then walked to the ice basket, filling a cup. Then she filled it with apple juice and dropped a straw into the cup and held it out to him.
He looked at it, and then at her.
" Now you don't expect me to feed you, do you?"
He paused, then reached a hand to take it. His hand was bruised and very thin, and the fingers trembled as he took the cup from her. This scared him, and he was afraid she saw it.
" Don't you worry, Mr. Simmons. That is simply because you lie in bed all day. When you start to doing things for yourself, the strength will come back to you." She smiled, and placed a towel over his lap as juice trickled onto it. He hated her patronizing smile, but was too grateful for the drink to make an issue of it.
She returned to her work and he watched her. The cold juice hurt his throat as he drank it, but it was soothing after a bit, as he had hoped it would be. He watched as her thin fingers moved in a blur, weaving the white yarn and creating an elaborate pattern right before his eyes. He was amazed, and became transfixed by it. There was a grand complexity within the simplicity of her movements.
He looked up at her face, and studied it. Her hair was very black, and pulled back into a tight bun, broken only by a streak of gray that run
" What is your name?" He asked, realizing that he had never used it, and hadn't paid attention when it was told to him.
She chuckled, " Mr. Simmons, I am very insulted. It is written plain as day on my nameplate." She pointed to it, and he tried hard to read it. She laughed and rose. " Maybe you need these glasses more than I do."
" Dorothy Isley, R.N.?" He half-asked as he read it.
" You can call me Dottie. Or Nurse Isley if you want to be business-like about it." She said, teasing him.
He was intrigued by her accent. Her every mannerism had become interesting. He was also amazed by the patience she exhibited. In many ways it confused him, but he also recognized that he himself was not the patient type, and that many such traits would be unusual. He grew up with the bottom line, and was bred to find it in everything, including humanity. If there was a profit to be made, he would find it.
Dorothy had been the only other human he had seen in the past few weeks, and one of only a handful since he left the hospital with pneumonia six months before. With the exception of his mother, and the random servants that used to hurry in and out of his room, Dorothy was the only person he saw in the flesh. All the others were on television or in magazines.
He felt the need to apologize to her, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he sought to show her that she was no longer the annoyance he had spent the past few weeks trying to convince her that she was. He would let her do her job, and hoped she would eventually fade into the same blur as the others, opportunists that measure humanity in terms of the potential for advance by extending themselves. She never gave him the impression that she was anything like that, but he would not let go of his maxim just yet.
" Can you help me?" He asked, pushing aside the sheet that covered him.
" Sure, Mr. Simmons, what do you want to do?" She smoothed out her dress and awaited instruction.
" I want to sit up, and put my legs down on the floor."
" You need to be careful, Mr. Simmons." She warned, not wanting him to hurt himself.
" I've been in this bed for almost 3 months."
She nodded, then stood along side his bed. She sat up, and she placed her hand on his back, feeling the moisture from his sweat. Despite the unpleasant feel of it, she was committed and had prepared herself for it. Craig dropped one leg down, and pain shot through his leg ((you just said "leg" twice)). Blood rushed into the extremity, bombarding the unused circuitry with new life and stimuli. He winced hard, but continued the motion, pushing the other leg down. As blood and sensation re-entered his leg, He sat on the edge of the bed, his arms gripping the sides hard, and his feet tingling from the rush of blood to them. He couldn't recognize his body. His athletic legs were now thin, and his shirt hung loosely on his shoulders, the collar drooping down to the center of his chest. The waistband of his pants fell forward from his stomach, exposing him, and he was ashamed and horrified. Nothing in his life would have ever prepared him for what he was witnessing. He was forced to inhabit a new body, and the terrifying fragility of it. He looked down, and saw that he was exposed. He felt shame and anger.
Sensing this, Dorothy, pulled up his waistband and tied the drawstring.
" Let's just fix this." She said, her smile never faltering.
He looked up at her and his eyes were round and filled with tears faster than they could fall. " What's happening to me?"
He reached for a hand mirror, and looked at his face for the first time in over three months. His blue eyes were bright, and stood out like lanterns against the pallid skin. His trembling hand came up to his face as he looked at it, tracing the bone that was visible through the loose skin of his cheek. Tears blurred his vision, and he dropped the mirror.
" Mr. Simmons, maybe you should change. I think a fresh pair of pajamas, clean sheets, and a warm bath may be in order. Then you can have a cup of tea."
Craig looked at her, and felt a rage swell in him. He dropped his face into his hands; again frightened by the thin fingers and drawn face they held. He spoke without looking up, " Ms. Isley, I want to be left alonego."
She offered to help him back into his bed and he snapped at her, calling her a "stupid, stubborn bitch". She took her cue and gathered her things. " I'm trying to help, Mr. Simmonsbut I know when I'm ill-needed and not appreciated."
Craig watched her as she left, too angry to feel regret.
He tested his legs, and when he felt they were able, he leaned hard on a chair and stood up. They buckled, but he did not fall. They throbbed with disuse, but he fought to stay upright. When he felt he could handle it, he walked to the window, and carefully parted the curtains.
Standing high above the city in his Penthouse, he looked at the twinkling lights and bustling life in the dark city. From the penthouse he lived in, he could see everything. The city stretched for miles around him, and he had memorized every inch of it before he was stricken captive by his illness. His eyes focused on the beauty of New York City at dusk.
The different landmarks made memories flood back. He remembered peeling down Lexington Avenue in his cherry red Porsche at four in the morning; a nameless blonde laughing hysterically as the speed, champagne, and wealth made them both giddy. He remembered the hottest nightclubs, and the ways he had come to inhabit them all. There was nowhere he couldn't go, and no way he could be told no.
Craig remembered the rush of making his first sale. He closed a big deal at the real estate firm, and the sky opened up and God himself patted him on the back. There was never a day in Craig's life that required a second thought. He was born to extremely wealthy parents, raised to expect the best, had conquered every Upper East Side debutante, and shared the spotlight with no one. Suddenly, in a flash of clarity, he realized how little he had to show for all of his accomplishments. Nothing could save him now, and he knew it.
Now he looked at the City, his City, and realized the party was over. He could see his cherry red Porsche, parked in the same spot he had left it months ago, half-buried in the October leaves. And while it was too far for him to see himself, he had heard that someone had scratched the word 'FAG' into the driver's side door, and no one had bothered to repair it. When his maid told him, he pulled the sheet to his chin and went to sleep.
It occurred to him that he spent a lot of time sleeping. Standing at the window, tears falling in streams, he remembered why. He felt like an alien in his own home. His body ached from the very simple activity of standing up, and his legs were fragile and weak. The memory of the face that he once saw in the mirror collided with the image of his face today. Craig took a step back from the window, and his left knee wobbled. He could feel the momentum of the fall build instantly, but was halted when a pair of strong black arms wrapped around his shoulders and held him.
" Now Mr. Simmons, I told you to be careful, didn't I?" She guided him to his bed and sat him down. " You are just very lucky I forgot my needle." She held up the silver needle that she had been knitting with, and smiled.
Craig quietly thanked her, and rested his head on the pillow, grateful for the sad familiarity of it.
Dorothy dropped the knitting needle into her bag and set upon her way. Then paused, and looked at him.
" Mr. Simmons, I want you to know that I am not angry that you took out your anger on me. It's not okay, but I understand why." She sighed, and watched as he wiped away a tear with a weak hand.
" I don't know what tomorrow will bring for any of us," She continued, wanting to ease the pain of her patient's reality, "I just know that it will come. If you are scared, I understandyou have every right to feel cheated. You have every right to feel scared. To be honest, Mr. Simmons, it is good for you. When you feel scared, you know you still have a desire to live. Sir, I want you to feel cheated, and angry, and sadI want you to want to be alive."
She stared at him for a long moment. "No one deserves this, Mr. Simmons. I don't know what you might have done to become poisoned by this vile disease. To be very truthful, Sir, it's none of my business. However, I hope you can see the overall point of what I am saying. Mr. Simmons, once you stop fighting against the weakness, you will lose your strength; when you stop fighting the pain, you will become fragile; when you stop raging against the weight of this illness, Mr. Simmons, you become a victim." She paused.
" Mr. Simmons, I cannot tell you what you should and should not do with the remainder of your life. I simply mean to tell you that you still have a life to live, and choices to be made."
She folded her hands in front of herself, and listened to his moist breathing. After a long period of silence, she turned, and began to walk out, mournful.
" Nurse", he called, stopping her.
She turned and looked at him. He looked like a small child. The bloodstain in his eye had cleared up, and his bright blue eyes stared at her, helpless. His lips were dry, and she could trace the lines of his mouth as he spoke, even in the dark.
" I want to shower, and get neat tomorrowif that's okay. Would you help me?"
She smiled and agreed, and then left.
This is pretty good. You have a good use of imagery throughout the piece. I just got a little confused when he got sick. How did he get sick?
To be continued in future issues of The Write Stuff's newsletter...
THE WRITE POETRY
Declarations
StraightRazor99
I know you love me
I'm the man of your dreams
I'm the one you think of
As the world fades away
I'm the one that holds you
I have your heart in my hands
I am the man you live for
And die for if I asked
I'm the man that you know
Because you created me
You made me the man I am
I had nothing to do with it
I simply let you think what you wanted
I simply let you fall in love
And I use it
I use your love of me
To own you
To keep you
To be sure that you'll never leave
I know you never will
Because you love me
You love who you think I am
And I love you for that
What's Natural
In honor of Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World)
The workman at his worker's desk
Twists the knobs, twists the knobs
With his oil-blackened hands
Conditioned with his choiceless blackened clothes--
Twists, twists.
And smiles a smile
The same as his brother's smile--
Twists, twists.
Mechanical wheels go round
In and out of the workman's station
Twists, stops:
A halt for something?
A blaze of Nothing.
And, feeling so, the workman continues
Twisting, twisting
One little solitary cog
Again and again.
-Amethyst Soul
Silent Reverie
[mhernan27@yahoo.com]
I stare deep down into the night
Where nothing stirs and all is silent
And as my eyes shed tears remembering that long-forgotten night
Just the hope of finding out the truth someday, keeps
me driven
The night falls
Emptiness is all that follows
And as I gaze into the night and hear the cries of
seagulls
I feel that in this doom, it's only me it swallows
It was three years ago, and yet it feels like it was
yesterday
When we both set out to meet our fate
We had no clue of what would happen, what would be
Our destinies had sure as hell brought us a mystery
date
How ironic life can be--- We both had made the same
mistake
Both did what we were not supposed to
And after all, we said and did
You're dead and all I've left is just a memory of you
How did this happen?
What went wrong?
I cannot rest until I know the reasons why
they've treated you so wrong
And, why they tore your heart to shreds and pieces
You're gone and I'm alive
Those words sound like the words of vi
But, they are not, they're said, they make me cry
They're nothing but an everlasting torture
What's strange is that I didn't even know you
You were a total stranger off the street
But in that night I went through so much in which I
can relate to you
That every time I think of it, my heart just skips a
beat
I hope that nobody will make the same mistake:
Going into a car with strangers, not knowing
whether they'll get killed or raped
For if they do, they'll put their life at stake
One minute they're alive and well, the next BOOM
death could close their lively drapes
I wish that others would understand
How serious what happened really was
I hope that someday they'll make a stand
To fix and change all of that night's flaws
And so, as years go by,
I'll keep you in my heart forever
And make sure that once upon a time
I will look back and know that this won't happen again
CRITIQUE OF THE MONTH
This month there will not be an additional critique, because the selection for The Write Stories section has been critiqued, although it was placed in a different section.
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS
D.H. Lawrence was an English novelist, story writer, critic, poet and painter, one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature. Lawrence's doctrines of sexual freedom arose obscenity trials, which are still part of the relationship between literature and society. He saw sex and intuition as a key to undistorted perception of reality and a way unburden individual's frustrations and maladjustment to industrial culture. In 1912 he wrote: "What the blood feels, and believes, and says, is always true." The author's frankness in describing sexual relations between men and women upset a great many people. Lawrence's life after World War I was marked with continuous and restless wandering.
~http://www.online-literature.com/dh_lawrence/
To learn more about Lawrence:
D H Lawrence biography - contents - MSS - University of Nottingham
D.H. Lawrence - The Academy of American Poets
D.H. Lawrence index page
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