When one is alone and wet and cold, and the distance between foot and cottage is not the distance feared, one has thoughts, some heavy like old iron, others light as hummingbirds and still some like the wasp. With a real wasp, one can run or one can swat, or if stung, one knows a life was given in the act. But when the wasp is inside and the sting within, well, one has thoughts best not shared.
I played in my mind what I would say. Then I played it again and I knew, what sounded so good in my imagination would remain as separate from the act as the play from the audience, as the reader from the book, as the ink from the idea. So, I took all my words and I kicked them before me as the rocks before my raisined toes, my anger shielding the pain, for what could a toe know of the woe of heart, the rend of soul, the dull ache of mind turned on itself.
The night air was warm and humid and I breathed the fire of salt into my dry nostrils and the burning brought tears to my eyes, salt to salt as dust to dust. That's when I saw a sight I will never forget and felt a burning in my failed lungs. Like that, they were gone and for all the running and yelling I might as well have been in a dream. The cottage was not the same and the emptiness of wall was but a pond to the empty ocean of my heart.
12 comments:
Whenever I come here, I fall in deeper love of the English language, rare is a lovelier display than in your postings. Poetic in parts, direct in others, the aloneness, the distance, the wanting to be where he is going and at the same time knowing that when he gets there the greater part of the journey will begin. The thoughts that occupy so well-written, the anguish, the fear, covering, hope just as audible though, only to return to the sight before him, the moment snatched and replaced by something more worrisome. And the aloneness becomes all the more consuming. Back later. Excellent chapter.
Ms Storm, you are very kind. One day I'm going to earn that praise. The chapters I imagine in my mind, with sight and sound and smell and all the rest are so much greater than what I'm able to put on paper. Still, day by day, chapter by chapter, I'll get a little better, a little more skillful and one you won't need coffee to wake up. :-D
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When one is alone and wet and cold, and the distance between foot and cottage is not the distance feared, one has thoughts, some heavy like old iron, others light as hummingbirds and still some like the wasp. With a real wasp, one can run or one can swat, or if stung, one knows a life was given in the act. But when the wasp is inside and the sting within, well, one has thoughts best not shared."
What an excellent analogy.
Thanks Meleah. :-)
But when the wasp is inside and the sting within, well, one has thoughts best not shared.
This certainly stirs memories, and thoughts remain just that.
Trée, wonderful writing! Excellent chapter.
Thanks Deb. :-)
T- There could be something wonderful down that hole, something leading to the light and hope. Thanks for your comment on my last night post - I'll give Pepper a pat and a scratch in her favorite itchy place from you. I wish she was doing better.
Victoria, as the owner of 4 dogs (was 5), I feel as if I know exactly where Pepper is and where you are in your love. Godspeed.
Wow, I've been kind of feeling like this lately.
In your response to Ms. Storm, though, I think you are wrong. I think that in your chapters, you do an EXCELLENT job conveying sights, sounds, smells, and so much MORE. You convey thoughts as they appear in our minds and that is why we can read and smell the smells and see the sights that you see, Tree.
You remind us what it is to feel. You make the reader feel not so alone in feeling. It is beyond the senses. It encompasses them; but, it is beyond that. For not only do I hear the wasp whizzing away, but I feel the wasp within stinging at my soul too. It's amazing what you do. It's like magic.
But, that is the only thing you're wrong on. =P Cos everything in this chapter is spot-spankin' on.
I agree with everyone else too, that wasp analogy....
It frailing rules.
It simply does.
And so do you.
:-D
Mmmm....coffee...
Strumper, you are very kind. Thank you. Sometimes I feel like my engine runs better on kindness than on any other fuel, a lesson I try and remind myself to live.
As for the wasp metaphor, I never thought in a million years so many would take to it, but that perhaps it was a bit of a stretch. Again, I feel like I'm the last to know what others are going to like in a chapter. Of course, pleasant surprises are better than the other kind. :-D
I agree with all! The wasp was a wonderful way to express it.
And Trev. I am ready for him to come back to us as he was.... but maybe he is the same then and now, and it wasn't for us to know that yet? Still, his part of the Story is intriguing. And I feel concern for a CHARACTER IN A STORY when I read about him.
You must be an awfully good writer.
Oh Jen, I'll bake some cookies and bring them right over. :-D
The wasp metaphor. Who knew? :-D
Trev is gonna be fine. Just some more growing up to do. I least that's what my sources tell me. :-)
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