Delusions
by
Participating members of the Northern Scribblers Online Group
The following writers threw their names in the hat for this month's project and a random draw produced this rotation list:
- 1st paragraph - Doris Ray
- 2nd paragraph - Rose Marie MacDonald
- 3rd - Peter Panjoyah
- 4th - Marilyn Bueckert
- 5th - Jim McGregor
- 6th - Lisa Striegler
- 7th - Gerry Irwin
- 8th - Elaine Storey
- 9th - Phoenix Wolf-Ray
- 10th - Wendy Clement
- 11th - Alan Sandercott
- 12th - Gill Kopy
- 13th - Barb Hagreen
- Final 2 paragraphs & Title - Jennifer Lock
A work in progress by our Writer's Group, paragraph by paragraph.
The middle-aged woman with the snow white curls like rolls of soft cotton batting stepped cautiously along the wooden sidewalk that snaked uphill and down through the quiet Vancouver suburb. It was bitterly cold this morning and she suspected there could be frost patches on the uneven planked surface, which could cause the unwary to slip and fall. She was thankful she’d worn slip-resistant overshoes over her new orthopaedics and the long woollen coat she’d purchased twenty-four years earlier on her last trip home to England. You just could not beat British-made garments for wear, she thought complacently. The grey-mixed tweed fabric looked almost as good as new. And it was wonderfully warm.
Anna feeling safe and secure in her nice coat and boots stopped, breathed in the fresh air, smelling of the sea and the city. No rain is falling this morning. The sun is now shining through, brightening up the streets and buildings, glinting off the little patches of frost, here and there. What a lovely crisp morning.
She'd enjoyed a delicious, filling breakfast of eggs, kippers (you could
take the girl out of Britain...), homefries and toast with marmalade prior
to her departing on her journey to the office a few blocks away, where she
worked as a graphics designer for a company called Antworks, whose
specialty was delineating the relationship between proactive planning and
corporate results. She felt so very sated and grateful for the abundance
her work brought her, not to mention the excellent chef her husband Sun had
become; setting aside his Asian cuisinart on his partner's behalf, he'd
become an exemplary culinary representative of the Union Jack. Looking
semi-consciously, habitually to the right at the same time as she stepped
onto the frozen hardpack of the street, she lazily wondered if she might be
getting a tad too round in the hips as a result. As she strode into the
center, gazing dimly but steadily at the opposite curb, the relatively
silent slide of the bus on her left skidding down the hill ever closer, its
brakes hopelessly locked up, never registered in her awareness.
A massive wave of pain overwhelmed Anna as the bus collided with her. She was suddenly flying through the air and falling into blackness. For a moment she felt surprise and wondered why people were screaming. Then, she knew nothing more.
Anna got to her feet quickly and began brushing the slush from her coat. She started to tell the crowd rushing toward her that she was OK. Suddenly, she was confused as they ran not past her, but seemingly through her, headed to the edge of a large excavation. She followed the crowd and looked over the edge of the hole dug for the foundation of a new building, and saw her mortal body crumpled in the mud at the bottom. Beside it stood a transparent image of her fifth grade teacher, Emily Hood, shaking that bony finger at her. Anna sensed she was being given a second chance, and Mrs. Hood was reminding her there was something she was supposed to do. Something she should have done a long time ago.
In that moment, Anna became conscious of bells – in the distance – that came closer and closer until she opened her eyes and saw her ceiling. She reached over to the night stand and pushed in the button on the back of her alarm clock. 6am. She looked around, her heart beating madly; touched her stomach, the bed, her blankets, and realized that she had been dreaming. Relieved, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Her heels were sore and her knees ached a bit. For a moment, she longed for the dream and the orthotics she was wearing in them. She must look into that. Oh, but how could she afford anything but the bread on the table. It was 1933, both she and her husband worked long hours; she as a clerk at the fish monger on the quay, and he as a BC Police constable in New Westminster. How strange she dreamt of herself as an older woman. She started down the hall to light the fire; the uneasiness of her memory of Mrs. Hood lingering.
In the kitchen Anna rattled the stove grates and carried in a bucket of
coal. The flames cheered the chilly room as weak January sunlight slanted
through the window. She switched on the big RCA radio and while it warmed up
she put the kettle on for tea. The radio cracked into life as she pulled
eggs and bacon from the ice box and she heard that Adolph Hitler had just
been appointed Chancellor of Germany.
* * * * * *
Sure her woven elephant-hair Celtic logo would be well received this morning at the pre-meeting with the executive committee, Annah's head filled with a burst of pride. She spent last evening and most of the "wee" hours reconfiguring the intricate motif. Weaving with the brackish hair had posed a challenge in the beginning, but as Annah studied the intricacies of the Claddagh designs and the entwined infinity symbol, her finger tips accustomed to the unique borders. Glancing down as she flexed her fingers, Annah reached the opposite curb, deep in reflective angst. The life blood of Antworks was dependant on Annah winning the Lundgren account. Grinning, despite the fish-oil and marmalade tug-of war in her tummy, Annah didn't see the impending explosion of metal on metal and flying debris that catapulted her into a wooden doorframe.
Anna awoke with a start, then shook her head decisively. "No! I mustn't dwell on these strange dreams I've been having, or I'll go mad! Life is crazy enough already with that Hitler character behaving so aggressively toward the rest of the civilized world!" She flung the covers off and shivered at the cold of the bare floor. She had donated every rag she had to spare to braid rugs for the war effort, and felt a moment of righteous pleasure at her sacrifice. Then the room spun and she thought dizzily, "Wait. Didn't I just do this? Am I still dreaming?"
As Anna slumped to the floor, a lifeless heap, her brain was exploding with a firework of activity. Snippets of her life flashed brilliantly on the inner screen of her mind– her life, past lives, future lives – an intricate web of memories. The smell of snow on a January morning, the bony fingers of a long forgotten teacher, a fish monger hurling his slippery catch, a uniformed man reaching out to her, the crackle of a radio, a sizzling skillet of sausages, a spinning kitchen machine, a corporate boardroom, picture after picture kaleidoscoped through her semi-conscious self. When Anna finally opened her eyes, she had no idea of how much time had passed, only that she was stiff and sore and her head throbbed. Her husband was sitting beside her, holding her hands. “Anna”, he whispered, “they think you’ve had a stroke”.
Through confused eyes she surveyed what she could beyond the hanging curtain that segregated her from the rest of the room. Clanging bells of an ambulance still rang in her ears. A St. Paul’s Hospital Emergency Room doctor with a clipboard in his hand stood at the foot of her bed, quietly conversing with a nurse clad in white. Anna's eyes suddenly fixed on her now tattered mud covered tweed coat draped across her feet. She concerned herself, not with what was happening to her, but 'how would she ever get her coat clean again'?
“Anna, look at me” came the anxious voice of her dear husband through the fog.
“Oh Sun, it’s you - my coat is ruined.” Tears streamed down her face. “You should be at the restaurant.”
“It’s alright dear”, disguising his anxiety and stroking her hand.
“No, no, it’s not. I promised her.”
“Who dear, who ?”
“Mrs. Hood, my Grade 5 teacher.”
“What did you promise ?”
“I promised to pursue the gift God has given me and dedicate my life to art.” Sobs shook her delicate frame. Shifting his police hat to the side table he moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders.
Melissa threw the last page on the stack of papers in front of her. Two more days until her short story assignment was due and although she had thought that she had the kernel of an idea for inspiration, it just wasn’t gelling. Twelve paragraphs she had written, with many an inspired idea surfacing but no continuity to speak of. She’d had her heroine, Anna (or Annah), on the wooden sidewalks of the early 1900’s, in the early 1930’s, during the war, and in a modern world of cuisinarts. She’d killed her off with bus accidents, flung her into doorframes with explosions, brought her back with two dream sequences, and flattened her with a stroke. She’d had her as a graphics designer, a weaver, and a clerk at the fish mongers while her husband had been either a chef in her contemporary version or a police constable in 1933. “Aaargh” – total frustration made her groan out loud. Although this was her accustomed practice to just jot down ideas and then glean the ‘best of the best’ (or so she put it), this week it wasn’t working.
"The medication should help her. Poor woman, she's been ranting for days. That accident could have been fatal...
Oh, Mr. Wong, your wife is recovering. Please stay by her for a while."
"Anna! I am Sun, your husband."
"Oh, Sun. Do I look young and pretty? I am Melissa working on an essay for Mrs. Wood...that woman who haunts me."
"No, my love, you are Anna Wong, and this is your good coat I have had cleaned and mended for you."
"Thank you, Sun. I have had such a hard, long journey. Now my coat will protect me."
Anna sighed and, smiling, closed her eyes.
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