Regular readers will recall that a couple of months ago I started a Creative Writing fresher course; I’ve already shared a poem, that I had written as a result of an exercise in class, so for today’s blog I thought one of my short stories would be appropriate. It’s call “An Open Window” and it owes its inspiration, in part, to a scene in my feature film script “The Bloodline”. Enjoy!
An Open WindowClinging to her like a shroud the clinical, caustic and contrary urinal smells of the room went unnoticed. Amanda was half focused on the book that she held tightly in her grasp and half-listening, listening for a moment she knew was close.
"Nurse Fairchild tells me you had a restless night. I’m going to stay with you a little longer today mum," she heard herself say.
Amanda’s mother, withered, dwarfed by the bed and propped up with countless pillows, slept a noisy uncomfortable sleep and did not reply. Nor would she ever again, her daughter, sensed rather than thought.
"I found that book you asked me for. I thought that I’d read it to you tonight."
Meaningless words, Amanda knew, but it was a comfort to her nevertheless, for was it not possible that her mother might just be hearing them? She loosened her grip on the book and opened it at a familiar place.
"I remember that flaming daffodil spring, like no other. Father had just been promoted to Captain or something and Mother was busying herself sewing gold braid onto his navy uniform. She held the thin strips of ribbon up to the light as I sat on the floor gazing up at the stucco and gold leaf ceiling. I knew then, with all my heart, that I would never be this happy again."
Listening beyond her own voice Amanda stopped reading; it had started! Guttural breathing from her mother, chain-stoke, she thought it was called, after nurse Fairchild had explained it.
"Call me if you’d like someone to be there," she had said.
Should she ring the bell? She knew that there would be no rush, no heroic efforts as they had called it, only a peaceful exit they had assured her. Should she ring, she thought again as the stoking of her mother’s lasts breaths seemed to fill the room. Afraid now she took her mother’s hand, but said nothing, what could she say? The fearful smell of approaching death swept away the mask she had erected and the hospital smells rushed into her nostrils making her feel sick. Amanda rang the bell.
She waited an eternity as the sickness turned to a numbing of her spirit, leaving her devoid, empty and alone.
"Goodbye mum," did she say that or was it someone standing just behind her?
"I love you," the disconnected voice went on and she was uncertain now if the words had been spoken or thought. So she forced herself to say aloud, "God be with you mother."
As her words faded nurse Fairchild entered the room, bringing with her the cold air of reality from the ward. She went to the opposite side of the bed and took her patient’s other hand.
"Not long now," Fairchild said, feeling the weak pulse under her fingers. "Would you like me to stay?"
Before another word could be spoken the breathing had stopped. Nurse Fairchild then placed the corpse’s hand so gently onto the bed.
"She’s gone."
Amanda said nothing. Her mother’s hand turned to ice within her grasp and Amanda slid her hand up the corpse’s bare arm searching for the heat of life, but the chill of death was too fast and she dropped the limb to the still warm blanket. She resisted the impulse to cover-up the arm, there is no point now, flashed across her dizzy mind. Looking around the scene which appeared as a distant dream, Amanda watched nurse Fairchild open a simple window.
"It’s a tradition, the idea is to allow the spirit to leave", Fairchild seemed to chant from another world.
For the very first time Amanda realised, realised for real, in absolute terms that one-day the window will be opened for her.
© brokenarrowfilms - June 2009
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