ever on word – Dreaming Awake

Hey guys! Thanks so much for voting for an ending to my short story! We now have a winner! Deshipley of Ever On Word has won!! Congratulations! You’ll be receiving an email shortly! It was such a close race, and I am so very thankful that you guys participated in this fun little event! I’ll probably do another one in the future.

Here is the full short story with deshipley’s ending included.

My hands were numb. In fact, my whole body was numb, but it wasn’t from the snow and cold wind that surrounded me.

I walked with no destination in mind, needing to escape. I didn’t understand what was happening. I really didn’t understand much.

I slipped my hands into the pockets of my jeans, hoping that would warm them. Snow stuck to the bottom of my slippers. I hadn’t even bothered to put on real shoes when the letter came. I had run out the door, dropping the letter in my wake.

I was at the edge of our property. An old bench sat there, waiting for someone to come along and rest their weary feet. But, it wasn’t my feet that were weary.

I collapsed on the bench, the snow melting through my jeans. My body shook with cold chills. The wind tossed around my hair, and cold tears ran down my cheeks. I welcomed the tears. They were the evidence of some emotion coursing through my mind. It was better than being numb. Numb I couldn’t handle.

He was gone. For good. There was no coming back from this. Death was permanent.

The rushing of the water down by the creek drew my attention. I stood, running towards the water. My slippers fell off, and I tripped over a log. I picked myself up and continued running.

I came to a stop on the bank of the river. I could end it. I could end everything. The pain. The tears. All it would take was a dive into the water, pulling me under the current and taking my body away.

I closed my eyes and prayed for forgiveness. Would God grant it to me if I took my own life? The life of our little one growing in my stomach? I couldn’t live without him. He was my everything. But I couldn’t kill our child. It wasn’t fair to it. No. I’d have to find a way to live with the pain.

I caressed my stomach. I’d just found out. I was three months pregnant. He’d been gone for only two months. How could his death have happened so quickly? Why would God let him die?

With one longing glance at the river, I walked back towards the house, praying for some kind of relief.

Someone called my name as I sank to my knees, looking towards the sky. Cold snow fell on my face. My body shook violently, and I knew that I had to get inside and warm up my body for the baby’s sake. But my legs wouldn’t work. I had no will to keep going.

I sank down, lowering my entire body to the ground. I covered my head and violent sobs shook my body.

“Traci.”

I was going insane. I could hear him saying my name.

“Traci. Get up.”

I wanted to lay here, give in to my insanity if it meant hearing him speak my name one more time.

Warm hands picked me up easily and carried me inside. A blanket was placed over my body, and a blurry figure walked away from me.

“Oh, Traci.”

The person rested a hand on my forehead. “You shouldn’t have been out there.”

I forced my eyes open and blinked away the tears.

It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. He was dead. I shivered with a fresh wave of cold, pain, and disappointment… but not from fear. I didn’t recognize this man moving around my kitchen, pouring hot water from my kettle into my favorite mug. But something about him was as comforting as the scent of steeping chamomile filling the room.

“Do I know you?” I asked as I watched him stir sugar into the mug. Two teaspoons, just the way I liked it. He sure seemed to know me.

He shook his head. “I’m a friend of a friend. He told me you were going through a rough time, so I came to lend a hand until things get better.”

My eyes flooded again as he placed the warm mug in my shaking hands. “I don’t see how things can get better. I don’t see how I can go on without him. I’m just not strong enough.”

“I know you’re not, Traci,” he said, gently smiling. “And you don’t have to be. Let our mutual friend be strong for you. Let him carry you with my arms, and serve you with my hands, and comfort you with my words. I will stay with you as long as you need me, and he will stay with you long after I’ve gone.”

I stared at him. “Our mutual friend…?”

“Has sent the relief you asked him for. Drink up, Traci,” he said, tapping the mug. “You’ll get through this together.”

With a watery smile, I whispered, “Thank you. You’re an angel.”

Chuckling, he knelt to slide my feet into my slippers – unexpectedly recovered and miraculously dry – while I sipped at the tea, and felt its warmth slowly draw the numbness from my hands.

Today, I welcome Danielle Shipley from Ever On Word. Danielle is a fantastic blogger and author. I especially loved her PerGoSeeMo Psalms, her take on the NaNoWriMo Challenge. She’s the author of The Ballad of Allyn-a-Dale, a YA novel, and it’s with great pleasure that I get to share one of her amazing posts!

Welcome, Danielle!

If one becomes a fiction writer of any sort of renown (“renown”, here, to be read loosely; having a handful of associates who’ve heard that you write counts), there is a question that you can be sure will arise: Where do the stories come from?

“Um, well, Associate,” red-faced, uncomfortable you may stammer, “when an author and a muse love each other very much…”

Or you can try to claim that a stork left the manuscript in a basket on your porch. But there’s really no call for such embarrassment. A writer who writes is the most natural thing in the world, and each and every story written is a unique little everyday miracle.

Mind you, I claim no especial expertise when it comes to biological reproduction. However, the dictionary alternately defines “pregnancy” as “creativity; inventiveness”, and that, I know significantly more about. I’ve never borne a child, but I have borne stories – several of them – and from what all I can tell, there are a goodly number of similarities.

It all starts with conception. Maybe it’s a name you’ve seen/heard/read somewhere, and you think, That name ought to belong to a character. Maybe it’s a stray phrase you recall from a dream that sounds like it’s alluding to something awesome, if you could only figure out what it is. Maybe it’s somebody else’s story that’s all very well, but what if this had happened, or what if he were a she, or what if…? A story’s origin is so often a “what if?”.

Then there’s the gestation period, which kind of doubles as the labor. Unlike human pregnancy, there is no standard nine-month timeline. I’ve had books that have taken me a month or less to write, and I’ve had books that have taken a year (“and counting”, in the case of some books on the backburner). You can take twenty minutes and fire off ten pages, or sit there for two straight hours and maybe eke out a couple paragraphs which you may or may not have to scrap later. If, during these painfully unproductive periods, you find yourself physically injuring yourself with frustration (hair-pulling, head-banging, nails bitten down to the quick…), try a bit of Lamaze breathing to calm yourself down. Then push.

At the equivalent of the third trimester’s latter end, the author may begin to feel rather restless. Just three chapters to go! Just two to go! Just one-and-a-half! Come on, come on! Expect the opposite of nesting. Never mind making the house clean, comfortable, and “just so” for Baby; dishes and laundry will keep – you want this story out of you now!

And then, at long last, you’ve typed “The End”! The book is written, and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever beheld! …Well, actually, odds are it’s a bit of mess. Newborns tend to be. But it’s still perfect in your eyes.

Consider the editing that follows as the book’s childhood – you, as the parent, responsibly preparing your darling to become a useful member of society. Most of you will probably have big dreams for Baby, wishing your book fame and fortune and the adoration of the masses. Maybe you look forward to an acknowledgement from some down-the-road author about how their latest bestseller was inspired by yours. (Literary grandchildren!) But even if no one ever knows of your story but you and the associates you were able to bully into reading it, on one level, it won’t matter. You’ll love your story anyway. It’s a parental thing.

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Danielle E. Shipley is the authorial mother of small pieces that have made their way into literary journals Luna Station Quarterly and The First Line and the charity anthology “A Cuppa and an Armchair”, as well as larger projects such as the reverse-urban-fantasy YA novel “The Ballad of Allyn-a-Dale” that are still seeking their fortunes in the great big world. While she usually hangs out on her own blog, Ever On Word, she was delighted to be invited here at Emerald Barnes’ Dreaming Awake Blog. Thanks for having me, Emerald!