As Mark sat down for supper, Terri said, “ So, what are you doing up there?”
“Writing,” Mark said reaching for the salad bowl that sat on the table between them.
“Really? About what?”
“Well,” Mark forked some of the salad on to his plate. “Me.”
Terri put her fork down and turned to look at her husband who was sitting beside her.
“You are writing about yourself,” she said.
“Yep. Have you ever wondered what your parents were like when they were growing up or how they got along with their brothers and sisters? I thought I’d write about that about me for the kids. What do you think?”
“I don’t think I would want them to know everything about my past,” Terri said as she picked up her fork and poked at her salad.
Mark looked at his wife and smiled. He placed his fork down and leaned back in his chair. “Do you remember what this table was like when the gang was all here?”
“Yes,” she smiled at him. “It was much noisier. The boys sat on that side of the table and Marie sat where I am now.”
“You and I were at the ends. I like this better,” Mark said as he straightened up. “But do you know what it was like at the supper table when I was a kid?”
“Noisier?”
“Yes! Noisier. I mean I did have a few more siblings but it was so much more. That is when we learned about what was going on in each other’s lives,” Mark said. He could feel the excitement growing inside him. “You remember that my Dad smoked. Well, everyone smoked back. Anyway, my sister hated that Dad smoked so at one suppertime, she took a straight pins and poked holes in a whole pack of cigarettes. It was his habit to smoke a cigarette after he ate supper. That night he kept taking in a puff but stopping when it seemed different to him. He tried one, put it out in that ash tray my brother made in shop class, and lit another, tried it, put it out, try another. Finally, he took a look at one closely and looked at my sister. She looked at him and smiled. She got up from the table, took her plate, and took it into the kitchen. He got up and went into the living room, laughing. Now, the rest of us had no idea what was going on, so my Mom asked my Dad what was so funny? He turned and laughed again and said, ‘Your daughter is very clever. She poked holes in all of my cigarettes!’ That caused us all to laugh with him.”
“I don’t get it,” Terri said to him and poked her fork into her salad. She looked at him and shrugged.
“Well, I am not going to tell you,” Mark said to her. “You can google it yourself.”
“Okay,” she put her fork, full of lettuce, into her mouth.
Mark settled back into his desk chair after they had finished eating together. He loaded up the dishwasher and trudged upstairs mulling over a number of ideas on how to tackle writing this memoir for his children. He leaned back in his chair and waited for his computer to wake-up. He thought about the cigarette story he told Terri. The point wasn’t the story, it was more about what his family was like when he was young. He shook his head. He needed to get organized. He leaned forward and typed:
Outline…
- Early Years
- Middle School
- High School
- College
- Love and Marriage
- Jobs
- Family
He stared out the outline and smiled. Is this how life is earmarked? Is this his life? A simple outline? He wasn’t so sure, but he wanted to write his story in some kind of organized fashion. He reread what he wrote earlier in the day, reviewing it and retyping some of the sentences as he read. He was ready to talk about his early days. What was his earlier memory? He knew the story of how his parents met. Maybe he should start with that? He leaned back and placed his hands together behind his head and looked out the circle window.
It was dark but bright. The moon was full and bright. He leaned forward and turned off the lamplight plunging his room into darkness to look out across the rooftops of his neighbor’s homes. The moonlight cast a white shimmering shine casting black shadows of every chimney and shingle on every roof. He looked up at the moon. It was absolute white, and the crevices and pockmarks on its face were visibly seen. The sky surrounding it looked black as velvet. He suddenly became aware that he could also see his reflection in the glass of the window. He looked back at himself and smiled. The window image responded with a slight shimmer. He thought a cloud had floated across the face of the moon and leaned forward in an effort to see it. The moon was as bright as it had been, so he cast his gaze back to the surrounding rooftops.
“What?” he asked himself in disbelief.
The landscape had changed. He was now viewing a small cityscape. He was now overlooking the main street of some town. The street was lined with lamplight and the building fronts he could see was a department store called Lilly’s with a windowfront of mannequins dressed in the latest fashion. It was next to a barbershop. They were across the street from a bank and hardware store. Another department store was next to the hardware store, but he couldn’t read the name of it. As he stared at the scene, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, the window shimmered again, and now he was racing down the street picking up speed, turning left at the end of it and then right done a different street. He could make out that it was tree-lined, perhaps a residential area, and turned right again. The scene suddenly stopped and slowed as it now stood in front of a building with a marquee across of it proclaiming to be the Boone County Hospital. He knew where he was now. He was in Columbia, Missouri at the hospital where he was born. The scene before him dissolved and reappeared in a hospital room. His mother laying on a bed in a room by herself. Her bottom half was covered with a white sheet. An IV pole stood next to her, next to a heart monitor that displayed a consistent, hill and valley readings. Numbers were also displayed, blinking and changing back and forth between 95 to 96.
The window shimmered again, and he heard a small click. The woman on the bed looked toward him at the sound. He rose and walked around his desk toward the window. He reached out to touch it and it opened slightly.
“Hello,” his mother called from the bed. “Is someone at the door?”
Mark pushed the window farther and stepped through it. His foot hit the floor and he turned toward the opening. He was now looking at the back of an off-white door. He closed it. Before turning toward his mother, he looked down at himself to see he was now wearing a blue, striped tie over a white button down shirt, covered in a long, white coat. He took a deep breath and slowly turned around.
“You’re not my doctor,” she said to him.
“No, I’m not, Mrs. Morrison,“ Mark started to speak before he knew what he was going to say.
To be continued…
My First Stories 