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.