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This is a story i had to write for my Creative Writing class. It was an odd assignment indeed... I chose a 4 digit number and then discovered that each number meant something that had to be included in the story. I dont remember all the details, but basically my assignment had to be about a 93 year old woman at a wedding reception after a large meal when someone's pride was injured.
It wasnt the most difficult story to think up, and it hasnt really been edited (feel free if you wish) but I hope you enjoy it. the class seemed to.
I am open to any criticism, positive or negative, and just anything you want to say about it. thanks.
Without further adue I give you:
Back, Moving Forward.
It was a beautiful day, like one that would be talked about as a central point in one?s life. A day for rejoicing and a day for celebrations of the greatest kind. She was there to see it all: the rings; the kiss; the romance; and the slice taken from the towering pastry of flowers that piled near the ceiling. The night was growing darker like a melancholy tale of gothic romance. The people left, all of them save for the families of those now wed. One, in particular never would leave, or so it would seem. She had watched it all from the back. She watched her daughter grow to womanhood from the back. From the back she watched her daughter?s friends abandon her as her father tried desperately to cheer her. She had watched everything from the back, and in the back was where she sat during the ceremony.
The truth was, she never did like to sit in the back or stand in the back of the line, or even go last, but she was always told to do so. Her life?s pleasures were ripped from her. All joys she once had were stripped from parents armed with screams and shouts and swears and punches. From the back she watched her parents fight and from the back of the room she would wait for her own punishment from her father and later, her husband. She was glad, however of her daughters triumph over the hardest of times and for finding a man worthy of her magnificence.
Pride, as it seemed, was nearly vanished, as if pride were ruins buried in the sand. Pieces and fragments of it would be found here and there, but they would never last forever, returning to the dust they dwelled in. Age had torn the old woman apart. She was a happily living widow with a daughter and a new son-in-law. She couldn?t be happier as it seemed, however she craved a new life and a new chance to marry a man that wouldn?t punish her or scar her. Perhaps a man that would truly love her. Someone that might live and love as a loving husband would, but that dream was in the past. She kept all of these emotions and thoughts and dreams inside, behind a mask of smiles, but on the inside she had to remind herself constantly not to cry.
She was always told not to cry. Her father said it would get her nowhere in her life of painful solitude. Her mother said it would solve no riddle or problem presented with pressure for her to solve. And her husband said crying was as useless as a hope in hell. It was elegant and simple, she could not cry. Her tears were kept behind her eyes like water rippling and rushing behind a dam. Occasionally a tear would leak out, sparkling into oblivion, but it was either quickly covered and smeared with paintbrush of fingers, or was punished with the paint of blood. She could not cry. She would not cry. She could not cry.
Later that night, after even the newly weds had left, she got up from her melancholy, shadowed location in the back corner. She passed by the delicacies that tempted her as she made her way home. Home is said to be where the heart is, however her heart was wherever she went, like a traveler?s walking stick. Her heart supported her as it was as big as the welts that came on her bruised bosom. Home was not her heart. Home had too many memories too painful to recollect, but it was amidst these memories she laid down her head after her prayers. She laid as a rose amidst a thousand thorns and her petals were wearing pale.
She looked through the frosted window to the floating stars as she always did and imagined them as tears falling to the air. She imagined her son-in-law treating her daughter with the love she deserved, though she might never know if this would become a reality. She recalled everything she could in a cycle of optimism that flooded her mind and made the thorns turn to white ribbons. There, amidst the lace flowing around her mind, she slept her last sleep and breathed her last breath. As she breathed her last, she felt a sense of calm take her as she walked down a path to the brightest of lights, embroidered with ivory feathers and smiles. It was here, near the gates of heaven, she sighed. It was here that she finally walked with the pride of her overcoming of her own past life. It was here, amidst the beauty of a thousand doves that a single tear sparkled softly down her cheek and fell to her pillow.
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