Wednesday's Words on a Friday



On Wednesday’s, Delores, from Under The Porch Light, has a meme which she calls

“Words for Wednesday”.

She puts up a selection of words which we then use in a short story, or a poem.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. actual
2. spontaneous
3. remedy
4. fanciful
5. mesmerized
6. cranium

and just to increase the challenge, we have...

07. listen
08. glisten
09. christen
10. moisten
11. hasten
12. penicillin

Here is my story:

 Wrapped in the restraining jacket, Annemarie's actual life bore no resemblance whatsoever to the fanciful dreams and monstrous terrors inhabiting her cranium. She gazed as if mesmerized at white padded walls that she did not see. 

On the other side of the heavy, locked door with its tiny barred window, her parents spoke anxiously with Dr Robinson and Dr Jerrie.

"Is there nothing we can do? No remedy we can try? I hate to see her like this, that's not my little Annemarie at all."

Dr Robinson looked very downhearted. "I'm so sorry Mrs Tark. I've seen this many times, all this hippie, flower power, free love the kids are into these days, wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the drugs they're all taking too. We've had patients who make spontaneous recoveries once the drugs are out of their systems, others come back to reality more slowly, some never make it back at all. They never come out of the worlds they've created in their heads."

Tears glistened in Pam Tark's eyes, her husband Roger sipped at a paper cup of water to moisten his lips before speaking.
"Are the restraints still necessary? She seems calmer, there are no new scratches on her face.....it's been two weeks...."

Pam said, "we never had her christened, I want to do that now. I know we always thought it wasn't necessary, but I want Annemarie christened, as soon as possible."

Old Dr Jerrie spoke up, "Pam, Roger, we've kept a close eye on Annemarie for the last 4 days and while she seems calm now, that's probably because she's close to falling asleep. There's a pattern here that we didn't notice at first, 36 hours of raging, screaming fear, then she stays huddled in that corner staring at nothing until she falls asleep. She's been staring now for about five hours, if the pattern follows, she'll be asleep by four o'clock."

"If only we knew what is in those drugs out there on the streets. At first it was just that Marijuana, then LSD, but there is something new, and kids are taking all kinds of combinations of pills," said Dr Robinson. 

Dr Jerrie said, "I wish this was a physical illness, an infection....we could hasten a cure with a shot of penicillin....but mental breakdowns like this....there's just no way of knowing what the damage is or why it happens. We just don't know enough yet about the brain and why it does what it does."

Roger asked, "if she has a calm period every day, would it help if we sat near her and spoke? We could tell her how things are at home, give messages from her friends, maybe she would listen....maybe something would get through?"



Comments

  1. Oh my....what a sad sad story and what great use of the words. You know, I see a novel in your future.

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  2. This is so sad. For Annemarie and for her parents.

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  3. I want to read more now...I'm a sucker for a happy ending...so I hope everything comes out fine. :)

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  4. Very sad story and it is more common now a days, with young and old people experimenting with stuff because life has become boring.
    Merle...........

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  5. Delores; maybe a novel as soon as I find a style that fits me.

    Elephant's Child; it is sad, kids see others doing the drug thing and they seem fine after, so they copy, but all brains are different and there's no way of knowing if yours is the one that breaks.

    Lee; I don't know about a happy ending, not for this one.

    Merle; I set this in the 60s when the hippie/drug scene was new and kids had no idea of the damage they could cause themselves.

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  6. That is simply brilliant and you've used all the 12 words so well. I am hoping there may be a sequel to this story and we will learn whether the medical profession was able to help Annemarie and bring her back to normality and the loving arms of her mum and dad.
    I fear so many young lives are lost or ruined so unnecessarily through the use of drugs. Are these youngsters just plain bored with their lives that they need to do this type of thing? "Why?" is a question we may never find the answer to.

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  7. Mimsie; I fear the outcome is not good for Annemarie. Who knows why kids take these things? Some have depressions and other problems and are looking for "escape", but others? Who knows...

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  8. River, you've done it again! You set us up, get us interested in your story, make us care about your characters, and then you leave us hanging! Doggone it, we need some endings, woman!

    Great job, as always.

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  9. I love that you guys do this. :-)

    Pearl

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  10. This is wonderful, River and like the others said, I want to read more. And I am hoping against hope that there is a happy ending for the family - although I know that's statistically unlikely. I had a brother succumb to drugs in the 1970s and know how insidious addiction can be and the terrible toll it takes on the whole family.

    I do hope you are going to write a book!

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  11. Just a little bit of hope...that is what they crave.

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  12. River, you are getting very good at using the words effectively. Maybe the next level of challenge will be to stick to the same story line and characters while using the Delore's words every week?
    Kill two birds with one stone - you sharpen your sword and we get to know what happens next!

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  13. Susan; endings?? Now THERE'S a challenge. I don't think I've done a single ending in all the time I've been doing this.

    Pearl; join us, I'd love to see what you come up with.

    Marie; I have a son who smokes regular and non-regular cigarettes, that's bad enough, I'm glad he never got into anything harder.

    Susan Kane; I'm not sure, I'll have to work much harder and we all know I'm a bit on the lazy side.

    mm; same story line and characters every week....I've thought of that. I don't usually work so hard at this, I let the words percolate for a few hours and then write down what the mind throws out. I have hard copies of everything I've done here, I'll look back through those and see if any can be worked on to fit together. And I'll certainly keep in mind the suggestion for the next few challenges.

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