Dream Scribbles

Tag: fiction

  • Courage

    A friend once told me that if everyone liked you, you’re either selling out everyone or you’re selling out yourself. It was a hard proverb for me to accept because I, like every other human, not only wants to be liked, but even loved by the people in my world. One only has to look as far as the Covid shutdown and the social/political divide in the United States to understand how important connection and acceptance are to us. So to assure we have enough of both, we are mindful of the things we do and say. We try not to offend and to stay within the set rules of engagement as best we can in order not to suffer the social death sentences of isolation, cancellation, and rejection. Thiis is especially true for us writers who put not only ourselves, but the fruits of our creative selves out there whenever we share or publish. Our words, fair or not, are seen as who we are and are judged accordingly.

    When I created the main characters and laid out the basic premise for “The Fairy Catcher” (my in-progress novel), it didn’t take long to discover that the story pushed certain social boundaries that make people uncomfortable. I’ve always prided myself as someone who created real characters who deal with real life things, but humans tend to sometimes shy away from and even reject things that have been categorized as social taboo. Some of the friends who I shared my story idea with were taken back by the material and began to question why I would create something so cringe worthy. A few even began to question my character and ethics, believing that my writing about such things was some kind of promotion or statement of my personal beliefs. (I guess they forgot that I write fiction.)

    The lesson I’m learning from writing “The Fairy Catcher” is that it takes a degree of courage to create any form of art. People will judge, criticize, and misunderstand. People will even ostricize in some extreme responses. But if we allow fear to determine what artists write of paint or say, all forms of human self expression will be in danger of being snuffed out. Courage, my friends. Courage.

  • The First

    Christmas comes but once a year. Thank God. I honestly don’t think I could stand it more than that. Don’t misunderstand me; Christmas had always been a good thing in my life. I had good childhood memories of the season complete with all the anticipation, magic, and everything else that made Christmas special. But that Christmas was different in so many ways. It was the first.

    I was determined to make the holiday everything it had always been. We had a house full of living beings: Sheila, my oldest, was becoming more cheerful as Christmas eve approached in spite of her teenage tendency to remain cool at all times. There was no holding back for Jan and Jen, the six-year-old twins. They were all over the place with limitless energy that created an atmosphere one would expect during the days before Santa makes his visit.

    Of course, I was who I was every year; Santa’s lackey. While he got all the accolades and publicity, I ended up doing all of the grunt work like playing musical parking spaces at the mall and battling crowds for that ear’s popular toy that every kid had to have. Mall shopping in December was always wrought with danger and hazards, but that particular Christmas was the worst. Sheila asked for a new iPad for her art work, but not just any tablet. She specifically wanted an apple green Apple. In my arrogance, I put it off thinking it would be easy enough to just walk into the store and by one. It didn’t take long for me to realize that apple green iPads were unicorns that, unfortunately, would have to be ordered. Faced with a delivery date of January eighteenth, I purchased a black one along with a Kelly-green case. Not quite what she asked for, but I hoped she would understand that I did my best.

    Shopping for the twins proved to be even harder. Identical in appearance only, Jan and Jen couldn’t have been more different. Jan loved what I would consider to be frilly, girly stuff. She was all into princess and Barbies and all the glittered magic that came with it. She asked Santa Dad for a dollhouse, a bike and some new Sunday dresses. Jen didn’t hide the fact that she wasn’t into any of that. She was a tomboy through and through, preferring to Hunt down and imprison the Prince Charming as a state enemy, then to fall in love and marry him. She didn’t ask for much: just some new sneakers, a few video games and something called an automatic knife which turned out to be a switchblade.

    There was no single store that carried everything the kids wished for, so shopping turned out to be a nightmare of bouncing from one overcrowded store to the next. Somehow Christmas cheer came in the form of passive violence as I was shoved, elbowed and stepped on by people like me trying to get through their lists and finally go home. It took visiting a few stores, but I found a dollhouse for Jan. I wasn’t sure what kind of dollhouse she wanted so I picked what I thought was the nicest one and purchased miniature furniture for its rooms. I even found a switchblade for Jen, but was sternly warned by the cashier to be really careful because it was illegal to carry. I wondered at that point if a knife was an appropriate gift for a six-year-old in the first place.

    By the time Christmas Eve had arrived, almost everything was done for the holiday. All of the gifts were purchased, wrapped and stored away in the usual hiding places. Jan, Jen and I happily helped each other decorate the house, but Sheila sort of kept to herself by sitting on the couch and pumping loud music into her ears. Then we all jumped in the car Finally, to buy an oversized and overpriced tree that left a trail of needles so thick that we probably could have used them to find our way back to the sales lot. Nevertheless, we managed to get the thing home, off of the car, through the front door and standing somewhat straight in the corner where its predecessors had stood each year before. It took us about an hour or so to decorate it with shiny glass balls, silver bells, tinsel and a few serving utensils from the kitchen drawer that Jan insisted on putting on the tree.

    Throughout the rest of the afternoon and early evening, I was following the checklist in my mind, crossing off each task and tradition as they were completed. We baked gingerbread men cookies and decorated them together. Then we had our traditional beef stew Christmas Eve dinner using my mother-in-law’s recipe. Then, after eating and loading the dishwasher, it was off to Christmas Eve Mass where I was finally able to take a breath and regroup for the rest of the evening’s festivities.

    Once we returned home, I sent the kids to wash up and get dressed for bed while I made the hot chocolate on the stove, burning my thumb in the process. My reaction was totally inappropriate for the day, but I did apologize to the Lord for cursing on his birthday. In record time, Jan and Jen returned dressed in their pajamas and matching pink bathrobes. I didn’t have time to check, but I could almost guarantee that most likely neither of them used a drop of water to wash themselves. But instead of sending them back to try again, I shrugged it off. It was Christmas after all and Santa probably dealt with dirty children all the time. After Sheila finally returned downstairs, we drank the chocolate and sang a few happy Christmas carols before ending the evening with my ever-popular dramatic reading of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” as I did every year since Sheila was four.I allowed the girls to stay up downstairs just long enough to watch the weatherman on the ten o’clock news track Santa’s flight on the Doppler radar. He was right on schedule as he made his way across Russia and Northern Europe, which only raised questions I didn’t have the answers to like, “How long does it take reindeer to fly from Russia to the United States?” and “How does Santa keep the toys from freezing?”

    It took a while, but I finally got Jan and Jen corralled and, at least, moving in the direction of their shared bedroom. They completely mugged me as they both hugged my neck tight at the same time, covered my cheeks with little kisses and filled my ears with “I love You, Daddies.” Sheila decided that she was going to hang in her room for the rest of the night. She gave me a hug too, but she had declared months before that, at thirteen, she was too old to kiss family members.When I was satisfied that all was calm and bright upstairs, I got to work pulling out the gifts from their hiding places. I was glad that I had the good sense to wrap most of them before hiding them because it cut my night’s work in half. After I arranged everything under the tree in a Hallmark sort of style, I pulled out the big gifts: new bikes for both Jan and Jen, a new easel and a few canvases for Sheila, and the dollhouse that said in fine print on the box, some assembly required.Once I opened the first box and saw right away that to use the word some when it came to assembly was a major understatement. I took a deep breath, mentally prepared me for at least an hour assembly job and got right to the task., talking directions to myself as I went.

    “Attach panel A to panel F using hex tool and screw RR. Attach panel A to panel F using hex tool. Where’s the hex tool? There it is. Now. Attach panel A to Panel F using hex tool…RR isn’t going to work…but that’s what the directions say. I have to just do it. Attach panel A to Panel F using hex…Attach Panel A to panel F…Attach panel A…I need RR Screws…Attach panel A and…Panel A…”

    The words on the instruction page became disfigured and blurry as I felt tears that seemed to cause a slight burning sensation as they filled my eyes. I tried to stop them. There was too much to do. Too much to assemble before morning. Everything had to be perfect for my girls when they woke up the morning and came downstairs to find a magical Christmas. I thought I was doing a good job and was ready to create the magic, but I wasn’t anywhere near ready. I thought I was strong enough to do it, but it was too much. I needed her. I needed Rochelle. All of the magic came out of her, but she wasn’t there. Ever since I kissed her goodbye in the ICU, I had worked so hard to be strong for everybody. I helped the kids through their confusion and pain as they watched their mother deteriorate before their eyes in that hospital bed until she became unrecognizable. I soldiered on through the funeral preparations; planning everything down to the smallest detail according to her wishes. I had gotten through every birthday, holiday and sad day on which I stepped in as a poor maternal substitute. I was outwardly strong on Mother’s Day and stoic on our anniversary. In the end, however, it was Christmas that finally broke me, leaving me so empty and alone that I could no longer fit panel A into panel F no matter how hard I tried.

    Suddenly, I felt arms slide around my shoulders and a kiss land on my left cheek. For a very brief moment they were Rochelle’s arms, somehow reaching back into the natural world to make my heart whole again, but it was Sheila’s tears intermingling with my own as her cheek pressed hard into mine.

    “I miss her too, Daddy,” she whispered into my ear.

    I tried to quickly pull myself together in order to address my daughter’s sadness, but I couldn’t. So, the two of us stayed collapsed and crying on the floor in front of the Christmas tree, holding on to each other and grieving the loss of a wife and mother that left matching voids in our hearts.

    I was unsure if it had been a couple of minutes or a couple of hours that had passed, but at some point, Sheila reached down and picked up the assembly instructions. After reading them for a moment, she then picked up panel A and began hunting around for panel F. I picked up panel F and handed it to her. As she fit the two pieces together, I was able to find the hex tool and the RR screws and we worked together to fix the two parts together until we had a completed corner wall or a part of the roof or whatever it was supposed to be. We then moved on the next assembly steps with even more panels and screws as the project more and more resembled a house.

    It was around three in the morning by the time it was all finished. Sheila and I sat on the couch admiring our work and taking turns yawning back and forth to each other. Finally, she reached over and grabbed my hand.

    “Things are never gonna be like they were, are they?” she asked as she looked me right in the face.

    “No, they’re not,” I replied.

    “I’ve been pretending a lot. Like everything’s ok and it’s just another Christmas like all the other ones. But it’s not. It’s the first one without Mom.“

    I know. I guess I’ve been pretending too. But just because things are different now doesn’t mean that we won’t have happy times. We just have to be honest with ourselves. And when we need to cry, we should just…cry.”

    After Sheila went to bed, I sat in the living room and allowed my own words to speak to me. Pretending wasn’t helping the kids and it wasn’t helping me. It was ok for me to grieve. It was ok to cry.

    The next morning came hours before I wanted it to. Jan and Jen were crawling under the tree making high pitched squeals as they discovered one present after another with their names on it. Sheila was on the floor with them doing her best to maintain some degree of order while keeping the twins from pulling the tree down on top of them. I sat on the couch, content in our new normal as I watched the action with half opened eyes and a grin on my face.