I Took Everything So Personally Then
So, we’re going to do something new and different today! And by “we are” I mostly mean “I am.” You’re probably thinking, “What, like you’re going to actually post something?” To which I would say (touché, and), “YES, exactly!”
What is more, I’m going to post a piece of writing based on an ongoing weekly writing challenge issued by Indie Ink as a whole, and the photography-loving curator and creative overlord of said writing challenge, specifically. Every week for as long as the challenge runs, the prompts come from twenty-two other writers who signed up for some compositional fun (sometimes doing business as: creative torture) and we get four to five days to rise to the occasion.
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My prompt for the week:
French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson once said, “In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.” Google Image Search “Henri Cartier Bresson” and choose the first photo from the left in the second row. Write a fiction or non-fiction piece *inspired by* or *about* that photo. Your life or the life in the photo, your choice, just write what it inspires.
Because I’m aiming to be challenged and not to cheat, here’s a screen shot showing the first image from the left occupying the second row from when I first searched for Mr. Bresson:
This, then, is my image:
For the proverbial record, I’m writing this from the fictional POV of the little girl in the photo, now grown.
————————Ready, set, prose!—————————-
I don’t remember the last thing my father said to me, but if you ever ask me I will tell you I do.
Making up my father’s last words is a pastime of mine, like twirling my hair around my index finger and thumb, or picking absentmindedly at a face I’m told looks like his. Some of his last words are so vibrant, so bright in color and tone they are almost instantly worthy of eye rolls, destined to be discarded like old chewing gum, pulled from between lips and wrapped around fingers, swallowed whole to be digested never, or secretly stuck to the bottom of bleacher seats. Some of his last words are less poetic. Some of his last words are downright dull.
It was the April before I was to turn eight, and I knew little about death. I knew even less about war. Up until the year before, I had imagined the physical act of dying as something abstract, an affliction of sorts that affected everyone else in the world but spared me, spared my family.
That was before my only grandmother succumbed to cancer, her body torn apart my ravenous cells from nowhere, malicious mutations that no one seemed able to explain. No one could paint me a picture of her passing from one world to the next (for I believed in next worlds then), and so I went searching in my own cavernous thoughts for some semblance of justification. I was certain someone, somewhere, could provide me ample cause for stealing a women once so vibrant and beautiful. I found no such illuminating exposition. No comforting explanation for death arriving mere weeks after danger was first noted in her limbs.
What I did find was apathy, a profound and noticeable universal disregard for my family’s new-found grief. Bustling traffic continued to perpetually annoy my mother. The bakery two blocks from our house still filled my room with the smell of fresh bread. My little brother still followed me around while I discovered new and inappropriate places to hide from him. I still had to go to school to practice multiplication tables I could do in my sleep and read imaginary stories written by people who would never know my father, my grandmother, me. Fanciful stories I pretended not to love, written by people who were no longer breathing. Just like my grandmother. Just like my father. Not like me.
If I missed them so badly, if I wanted to see them again, why couldn’t I just stop breathing, too? I wondered this to myself quite often back then, and aloud once or twice before my mother shushed me and told me to concentrate on actually washing the dishes instead of merely suffocating them in a vat of soapy water.
Life seemed indifferent to my grandmother no longer being a part of the personal and planetary rotation, and after an obnoxiously elaborate ceremony with medals and a big flag mom never wanted to touch again after tall men in taller uniforms first handed it to her while we both stood in an over-crowded cemetery, my little brother staring longingly at the fresh dirt he wasn’t allowed to sit in or fling or pat into a pie, life seemed wholly indifferent to my father’s death, too.
After an hour-long ceremony wherein I pretended I had magic powers which enabled me to make time stand still, the world stopped taking notice of my father being shot in a country I couldn’t locate on a map without assistance, for people I would never meet, for people who would never remember the way his mustache tickled my cheek when he bent to hug me, or the way his eyes danced when he was talking about motorcycles he and my brother loved and my mother hated, or the way his laugh always made my mother laugh too, even if she was preoccupied with being upset with him.
After a few months I too found myself forgetting to remember they had died. I still anticipated trips to my grandmother’s house to help her bake her pies and do her crossword puzzles and grow her roses. I still waited for my father to come home after work, telling my mother jokes while I set the table and he pretended to help with dinner, carrying my brother on his shoulders while he giggled breathlessly.
Death stole two of the most important people in my life before I had time to memorize them, and so became a mysterious enemy to me, as elusive as the genesis of those malicious mutations emerging so suddenly violent and vengeful, seeing fit to devour the quality of my grandmother’s life. As cruel and senseless as the bullets that careened into my father’s athletic torso.
I took everything so personally then.
Oh, WOW. Whoa.
Holy shit, Kerr.
I. LOVE. THIS. So beautiful, so raw, so exposed.
Holy shit.
You knocked it out of the park with this challenge. Great job! Thank you so much for being a part of this.
Wow. Just, wow. That was so beautifully written! Such vivid imagery and raw emotion in such a short piece. Fantastic!
breathtaking. well done. wow.
You are amazing. I love this: your style, your tone, everything. Please do more!
Love this, Kerr. Love.
You make me want to be a better writer.
Prosetastic.
I am loving this challenge.
What luxe writing.
And the story?
Just amazing.
Wow. That grabbed on right from the first sentence.
Three thumbs up, Kerr.
You are amazing. And amazingly talented.
wow. just … wow. i wanna read your novel.
like, now! so amazing.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by George Pappas, indieink.org. indieink.org said: Holy writing talent. @Jurgen_Nation challenges @kerrianne: http://ow.ly/1s4nzQ via @indieink Writing Challenge [...]
Fabulous. Really lovely prose and great imagery. You did a phenomenal job.
magical powers making time stand still? such a perfect description of a child’s thought in that moment. this is really achy wonderfulness. bravo!
That was so beautiful and so rich – I love it. Fave line? ‘tall men in taller suits’ – gorgeous. :)
You dud an amazing job with thid
Damn! Love. :)