Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by David M. Gascoigne and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. laboratory 

2. devoted 

3. ridiculous 

4. happy 

5. tenderly

6. sick 

and/or: 

1. encouragement 

2. diseases 

3. formidable 

4. unruly 

5. vaccine 

6. cricket

Here is my story: 

Throughout his childhood, Steve’s mother, Mary, had devoted herself to her son’s welfare. A formidable force, she had forbidden unruly behaviour and outdoor “play”. Dirt carried germs, and Steve becoming sick, for any reason at all, would tell the world that she was a failure as a mother. Mary needed no encouragement to get Steve every vaccine available for whatever might be “going around”. Her home was as clean as a laboratory, with all the scrubbing and sanitising verging on the ridiculous, but Mary didn’t see it that way. She tenderly tucked him into his freshly laundered sheets each night, happy that one more day had passed without Steve getting any of the currently known diseases.

One night, Mary gave voice to a thought she’d been having, that maybe Steve shouldn’t go to school, so many of the children might be carrying unspeakable things, Steve mustn’t be allowed to catch them. Steve was unable to answer. School was the only place he could do normal things, like play cricket at lunchtime and climb on the jungle gym. It was a place where he didn’t have to care about germs. But he did wash off any accumulated dirt in the boy's washroom before leaving school each day. He knew the reason for her fears of course. Life had been normal for Mary until his father had contracted tetanus from an injury at work, he’d died a month before Steve was born. Mary was convinced it was her fault for not making him see a doctor sooner. 


Comments

  1. Poor Mary. And poor Steve. My heart aches for both of them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child; Steve is a smart boy and talks to a counsellor at school, so He and Mary both get help.

      Delete
  2. Kind of understand her obsession but feel so badly for them both.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arkansas Patti; It's weird how obsessions can take hold and just keep growing, but they get help.

      Delete
  3. Oh, boy. In the late 1990´s a woman like that lived above the flat I shared with three people.
    When you didn´t hear the vacuum each and every day at least twice, something was wrong.
    The poor kid was "cleaned" before getting inside, the husband had run away from this already.
    We never knew if to pity or hate her. I think it´s some kind of... illness.

    The kid was maybe 4-5, I don´t know if she was allowed to go to school.
    Your story at least gives an answer, here we just knew the husband left from the "cleaning terror".

    The girl did some sort of sport, though. Jumping off the bed to the floor for...ever. Certainly her room was above mine.

    "Thank you" for bringing back those memories ;-)
    I think I felt sorry for the woman. And the daughter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iris; it is an illness and can be treated if the person is willing and realises something is wrong. Many don't. I remember cleaning my whole house everyday when the kids were small, I didn't have a computer then so there wasn't much else to do, but I wasn't scrubbing and sterilising everything, just making it tidy, keeping it nice.

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    2. I should find a way inbetween.
      I swear at night someone sneaks in and leaves chaos!

      Delete
  4. I knew such a mother once - poor children. Well written and describes them to a T, mom and kid both.

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    Replies
    1. Charlotte; Thank you. I have never known such a person, but I have seen them on TV shows.

      Delete
  5. I know families like that and it's so sad. I agree, it is an illness and there is help. You can feel for Mary tho... I get it. My little sister got really sick one time with a rare illness that most kids were dying from at the time, thankfully, she did not. But the last thing she ate before she got sick was cream of mushroom soup. It had nothing to do with her getting sick but it was years before my mom would have that soup in the house and my little sister (she's 54 yrs.) has never eaten it again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, connecting taste to a disease - I'm guilty too. One Chrismas long ago I got a roll of Viennese nougat - loved it, and then I got the flu, bad. I have not been able to stand the taste of it ever since. So I get your sis, happy she survived.

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    2. MMM and Charlotte; I know about the food connection, one of my daughters woke up vomiting one night, I don't remember what we had eaten that day, but her bed was covered in peas and it was all in her long hair, she hasn't eaten peas at all since that night.

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  6. I am regularly taken with what you do with the prompts, Julia. This is another fine piece of writing, Bravo.

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    Replies
    1. Sean Jeating; thank you, my name is not Julia, but I'll take the compliment anyway.

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    2. Uff! No idea why I wrote Julia when I in my mind I wrote River. ;-)

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  7. Steve has adapted to living in both worlds, and can hopefully develop a strategy to continue his schooling. No real right or wrong in this situation, a compromise is needed.

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    Replies
    1. Val; definitely a compromise and some counselling. In my mind, things work out well for them.

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