FanStory.com - ...And Baby Makes Threeby LisaMay
Excellent
Not yet exceptional. When the exceptional rating is reached this is highlighted
Where does the time go? (531 words)
...And Baby Makes Three by LisaMay
Where Does The Time go? writing prompt entry

I lost three years. I looked everywhere, searching my empty places. 

I searched my memory and among the rubble of remembrance I found plenty of broken pieces – maybe six months’ worth. I could not find the rest –  serenity eluded me.  Where had the other two-and-a-half years gone?  

I searched my conscience. I had to dig deep, but I found a few scraps. That made up another six months.

Two more years to go; two more years of woe, and still I was wholly unaccounted for. Missing in action; going through the emotions.

I searched my beliefs. What did I believe had happened? Who did I believe I was? I could not believe it. I could not retrieve it. Still missing.

I searched high. I searched low. Up with the angels, down with the dung. I found my mouth full of ashes and my songs had all been sung. I searched here. I searched there. At home I found no peace. Out there they just don’t care. I found respite with repetition. I tried to find rhyme and reason within every season. I did not find release.

I searched Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Yes, I was born. So was our baby. Yes, I was married. No, I am not dead. But baby is. If this is living, I wish I were dead, too. 

I searched Lost and Found. I found one foot followed another, but did not know where I was heading. Someone had moved the signposts. I was lost. The road markings were in a foreign language. Everyone looked at me with puzzlement, so I knew then I was the stranger. A red-eyed, ashen-faced, hollow-cheeked prisoner trying to escape. There wasn’t a padlock big enough to shut away my grief. When I watered it down with tears it took up more space. Are broken hearts the heaviest?

Then I understood where Time had gone. It got wasted on pain. It got spent on wishful thinking. It got frittered away in fragments. It disappeared up its own orifice, eating away at itself to become a ravenous python squeezing the life out of me – crushing my spirit, feeding on my grief. 

It took more Time to overcome it. To subdue it as it coiled within me. Time – the destroyer and the healer. I had to take my time until I nearly ran out of time. Time warped my mind, twisting like a ligature around me – tight bindings on a bonsai tree’s branches, stunting my growth, impeding my natural progress. 

When the fog began to blow away, Time unspooled before me like a toilet roll – pristine – ready for the future being messed up but offering a clean sheet. On good days I began to think of Time unwinding like a colourful ribbon, waving enticingly in front of me. 

So that is where those three years went, after you left me. One for you. One for me. One for our baby makes three.

Time has become a bungee cord. It look me low as I fell from the edge; now it is springing me back to Life. Life, in all its pain and glory, stretches into the future.

 



Writing Prompt
Write a STORY in under 600 words mentioning these things: the number 3, a baby, a padlock, a colorful ribbon.

     

© Copyright 2024. LisaMay All rights reserved.
LisaMay has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.




Be sure to go online at FanStory.com to comment on this.
© 2000-2024. FanStory.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Statement