The Letter-14 days, 7 prompts, 1 story

14 Days, 7 Prompts, 1 Story

The Letter
Chapter 1 Prompt 1

They say that the journey is as important as the destination.  This journey was harder than I ever imagined. My destination was home, and the journey took me there, back across the country and back through the years.  My feet hadn’t stopped moving since I left over FIVE years ago.  I had done all sorts of work in all sorts of towns looking for something.  What ever it was I that I knew I’d only find here and here was the place I couldn’t be.  I was aware that I’d come back someday just never when or why.  Christmas, birthdays they all came and went.  Each year I imagined coming home, just opening the screen door, popping my head inside and shouting hi, smelling the food from the kitchen.  But it never happened.  That wasn’t my life my childhood.  Those images, memories are from TV and films.  The same reasons I left where the ones that stopped me returning.    But the further I ran the closer I was to coming home.  Which is why I’m sitting here on a train bound for home, finally doing the right thing. For the wrong reasons?  Possibly. Though it maybe for the only reason.

The catalyst for my pilgrimage to the wonder years is clasped in my hand a letter.  I‘ve only read it once but I know it all by heart, every word, every comma, every breath.  I hear her voice saying the words, and see flashes of who we used to be.



Jack,

How are you?

Where are you?

I only hope this letter reaches you in time. 

So much has past, I wonder if you will ever come back to this town, to us to me. Some days I think I see you, or hear your voice on the wind.  When the lake is frozen, or the meadow in flower. I remember those days.  Our youth.

I’ve written this letter many times, even before I knew how to contact you, but I’ve never posted it.  Some of them I’ve kept, some I haven’t.  Some times I was so angry with you for running away escaping.  Sometimes with myself for not going with you. 

But this time I have a reason, I have a message.  I don’t know what was said the day you left, and I don’t want to.  You and your dad, always had your issues, but you’re your father and he still loves you.  You always were so similar. He has cancer, terminal. 

Dying changes people Jack, he needs to see you.  And Jack you need to see him.  How long does he have?  Not long they gave him 6 months, 6 months ago.  I only found out recently.  I’ve always kept an eye on him but he’s a devious and stubborn old man.  I’m breaking a promise telling you this.  He asked me not to tell anyone.  But Jack you need to know.

I don’t know where you have been or what you have been doing.  Life can change us, or refine us like a sculpture; time and experiences strip away the excess till only the truth is left.  But too much and what’s left, well often there is nothing of any worth left.  Terrible things happened here and God knows we didn’t deal with it well. .  I hope life has not changed you, left you bitter and twisted.    But I don’t know.  I understand from Max that you will get this letter, I’m sure you will do what you see to be right.

As always

Mary.

I’d left almost without a sound; there had been shouting, threats and promises.  But when I left I did it silently walking out the front door, as he slept off tragedy with whiskey on the sofa.  So much was going on at the time.  But if she’d have asked I would have stayed.

My head rest against the window of the carriage.  The scenery has changed again from WOODS to farmland and pasture.  This journey is taking forever, the closer I get the slower I seem to be moving.  I’ve been struggling to escape the gravity of this place and now it seems to be repelling me.  But I’m close now, I swore I never comeback, I think that stopped me for a few years, but that which pushed us together pulled us apart, ripping us apart at the seams.  The dust never did settle, to many people on to many sides. Mothers, fathers brothers, sisters, friends, family what they where, what they could have been.  All lost.  The biggest moment of my life was the death of nearly everyone I knew.  Who was at fault?  All of us? None of us?

We had enough courage to face death, but no where near enough to live.  The press stories spoke of the tragic and senseless lose, of the fifteen people killed, but they might have been the lucky ones, not living the remains of live in broken homes surround by broken hearts and broken dreams.


Words 848






14 Days, 7 Prompts, 1 Story

The Letter
Chapter 2 Prompt 2


Walking out of the SQUARE squat station the sun hits me hard in the eyes.  It’s a few seconds till I can see clearly.  When my vision clears, I think how nothing has changed.  We used to say that the town was twenty years behind everywhere else, that was why nothing every happened here.  That was before I had been anywhere else and discovered the gap was more like thirty years.  And we never realised how sorry we could be.  Nothing ever happened here, till the day it did.

Lighting a cigarette and throwing my bag over my shoulder I start to walk.  As a child this town felt so big, but I know nothing is much more than ten minutes away. Even then I probably could have walked ROUND the town in little over an hour. As I walk I notice the changes, so subtle a different vibe, and a different air.  Others more obvious, the small store I used to buy trading cards, where a fake ID brought me my first beer used to be run by Mick a weird old fella been in his family for years, now it’s a 7-11, a chain shop like the ones in every other chain town.  Passed my high school, and the Bilton OVAL, Home of the Bilton Bears, as star pitcher for the team my high school life had never prepared me for life.  As long as I pitched well I could do no wrong, to my peers or the town, as long as I pitched well.

The signs are everywhere, what looked run-down and care-worn all those years ago, is now dilapidated and near to ruins.  The shops have changed, all are now chains John’s Hardware, Even Pats bar has gone.  Nothing has changed it’s a dying town in a dying part of the country but everything has changed.  The only new businesses seem to be strip clubs and porno palaces every block seems to have one.  They’re everywhere across from the school next to shops that sell fast-food.  On every empty space of wall I see a big red TRIANGLE, there are triangles stuck to the traffic lights.  I rip one down see a name I’ve always wanted to forget Joe Paterson’s Casino.  In side my heart screams.

I speed up my walk; I now want to get home.  I didn’t expect a Homecoming, a parade, music and dancing.  But I never thought this town would change.  In a way I’ve hated it for so many years.  I didn’t want it to change, if it stays the same it justified my hate, my fear, running away, staying away.  I never expected things to worse.

The road rises sharply now.  I know where I am, 20 more yards and it’s our drive way, home.  I have finally come home.


Word Count: 484



14 Days, 7 Prompts, 1 Story

The Letter
Chapter 3 Prompt 3


In front of me stood the house, my family home, the buildings and land in which I was born and spent the first twenty-one years of my life.  Growing up?  Well that started here, in the final six months and continued elsewheres.  Was coming here the beginning of something?  Or the end of something else?

I start up the path, the house sits up and back, in my mind it has become more ominous then the Bates Motel.  As the path curves, I see the stump.  I stop, I think, it’s been five years a little longer isn’t going to matter.  Suddenly I find myself running pass the stump, the first marker.  Through the trees, the bushes and undergrowth.  Passed the arrows marked on trunks, and dotted patterns scrawled on rocks.  All markers, then I’m there, our base, Camp Hideout.  A terrible name from four innocent kids.  It’s been five years since I came home it’s been nearly six since I came here, since before it happened.

The Camp has survived better than the town.  The ladder nailed on to the tree is still solid.  The base of the tree is surrounded by crosses, the graves’ of so many childhood pets, cats, dogs, fish, snakes, birds’ rats and mice.  I leave my bag pocketing my last can at the side of the tree, and I climb.  It may have looked solid but halfway up I’m not so sure, but I keep climbing.  The base, the den looks barely touched by time or the elements.  We may not have been able to name it but we could build, with help, I always thought that this place would survive longer than us.  I never expected to be right.

I sit in my chair, facing out of the opening looking down hill from the house viewing my childhood as I view the land that it all happened in. So much of our time was spent here I nearly lived here!  And Mary, I broke her heart in this room.  We tried so hard to make it special, we both needed some-one to hold and we only had each other left.  Candles, wine and music I had some how dragged a mattress up here.  I’ve no idea where it came from let alone how I got it up.  We were so tense, so excited, and nervous.  Every pore of our beings where screaming out for release.  Two heart-broken teens, looking for solace and finding somebody who had the same needs.  The kissing was shy, and tense.  It got sloppier and sloppier, as the wine made us bolder and horny.  Embarrassment remained hands touching places where we had only touched ourselves, it wasn’t the right time, this we knew but we’d been forced to grow up so soon it seemed like what we where supposed to do.  We made it to the bed very drunk. We attempted to undress each other and giggles ensured.  Her underwear, it matched but he look was ruined by little black cats not the sexy underwear of my dreams, from the films and magazines I’d seen. Naked we kissed and fondled hard without experience and tried harder to try our discomfort.  My head hit the black pillow to the sound of a feline yelp and human screams.  WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE HIGHLIGHT PF OUR TEENAGE LIVES WAS RUINED AS TOBY, THE BIG BLACK TOM SHOT OUT OF THE ROOM.  Black cats on her clothes and a black cat in our bed.  Like we were being teased by those we could no longer see.  Eventually she fell asleep in my arms, I snuck out at first light and walked back to the house, packed up and walked back out again.

I rummage through the old draws and bric-a-brac that we begged, borrowed and stole to decorate our den.  In the bottom draw, is my old tin inside is a hardish brown lump, I look at it, and what the hell, I’ve been clean for 3 years but I know there’s papers around here, one joint isn’t going to hurt.

I’m sitting there in my chair a beer a joint no tunes but other than that its like I’ve never moved.  Whatever happens up at the house, I know I’m home.

Word Count: 724



14 Days, 7 Prompts, 1 Story

The Letter
Chapter 4 Prompt 4


After awhile I leave my childhood behind, so much of it was so good, shiny with brilliance but the terrible end only brings pain.  I walk back passed the stream and the stump to the path.  It’s only a few more steps as I turn the corner.  There in front of me is home.  The moment, the fear, the passion the drugs something makes me start to well up.  I attempt to compose myself and approach the front door.  Pinned to the Oak door is a note,


Jack,

I don’t know if you got the last letter and if you did what you did but I am hoping you are reading this in time.  Your Dad took a turn for the worse we had to rush him to hospital.

Please come, and please come quick.

Mary

The paper is new, recently posted then I see today’s date at the bottom and a time 1145.  Just as arrived in town.  Damn my melancholia.  The hospital is in the next town: Longford.  I need a car.  Dropping my bag I rush to the barn the doors are padlocked shut but luckily nobodies ever thought of changing the code.  Inside is my first truck a very battered old pick-up.  Not really sure what colour it was then now its mainly rust doubt it has been used much if ever since I went away.  Now I need all the luck in the world.  I MUST GET TO THE HOSPITAL AND SOON.  I CAN’T HAVE COME ALL THIS WAY TO SEE MY FATHER BEFORE HE DIES, AND END UP THIS CLOSE.  PANIC SURGES THROUGH MY BODY AS I ATTEMPT TO GET THE RUST BUCKET MOVING.  THE KEY KEEPER UNDER THE BACK WHEEL FINALLY PAID OFF AND THE CAN OF FUEL IN THE CORNOR.  ITS RED DISEAL FROM THE OLD FARM, BUT I NO LONGER HAVE A LICENSE.  THIS IS MORE URGENT THAN THAT.  THE OLD MONSTER FINALLY STARTS AFTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE SO LONG, EVERYTIME I TURNED HER OVER I WAS HOPING, PRAYING SCREAMING OUT TO START, EVERYTIME SHE FAILLED I SCREAMED BLUE MURDER SCRRECHING OUT OBSENTIES TURNING THE AIR IN THE BARN BLUE.

WITH HUGE WHEEL SPIN I FINALLY GET HER MOVING.  THE STRESS THE TENSION THE PAIN OF THIS MOMENT MEAN I CAN’T SEE THROUGH THE RAGE AND THE TEARS, SO I CLIP THE DOOR AS I TEAR DOWN THE LANE MY HAND IS NAILED TO THE HORN AND MY FOOT THE ACCLERATOR AS I SWING OUT OF THE DRIVE NO SIGNAL, NO WARNING, NO SLOWING DOWN.  THERE IS NOTHING ON THE ROAD AND I START TO HAMMER IT TO LONGFORD.

THANK GOODNESS BILTON IS A QUIET TOWN I JUMP REDS, I SWERVE FIRST LEFT AND SECOND RIGHT NEVER BRAKING. REFUSING NOT TO ACCLERATE I BLOW PASSED THE SCHOOL PASSED THE SHERRIFS OFFICE AND THE TRAIN STATION. 5 MILES OUT OF TOWN I HEAR SIRENS BEHIND ME.  IN THIS SHITTY TRUCK I KNOW I CAN’T OUT RUN THEM. I DON’T WANNA STOP I CANT I MUST GET TO THE HOSPITAL BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE.

BEING PULLED OVER IS JUST LIKE ON T, “PUT YOUR HANDS OUTSIDE THE VEHICLE” THE WHOLE WORKS.  THE OFFICE WALKS UP LOWERS HIS HEAD I CAN SEE HER NOW RECOGNISTION STREAMS THROUGH ME

“KATLIN THANK GOD ITS YOU”

KATLIN WAS MARY’S SISTER WE KNEW EACH OTHER QUITE WELL A LIFETIME AGO.

“LICENSE AND REGISTRTION PLEASE SIR” OBVIOUSLY EVERYONE HERE WOULD KNOW HER BUT SHE DOESN’T KNOW ME.

“KATLIN ITS ME JACK, JACK MULLALY.  I GOT NEITHER BUT PLEASE ARREST ME LATER MY OLD MAN IN LANGFORD GENERAL, I’M BACK TO SEE HIM, PLEASE.

“WHY IT IS YOU AND I’VE GOT A BETTER IDEA GET IN MY CRUISER AND WE WILL BE THERE IN NO TIME.

TWO MINUTES LATER IM ROCKETING TO LANGFORD, IN A CRUSIER WITH THE SIRENS AND THE LIGHTS ON FULL.  NOT REALLY MUCH POINT OUT IN THE MAIN ROAD BUT AS WE GET IN TO THE OUTSKIRTS OF LANGFORD WE FLY THROUGH THE SUNURBS.  KATLIN KNOWS ALL THE RAT-RUNS AND SHORT CUTS AND TWENTY MINUTES LATER WE ARE THERE.  GO ON IN SHE SAYS IM GOING BACK TO WORK SAY HI TO YOUR DAD AND … I KNOW SHES HERE. SHE’LL BE GLAD YOU ARE.

WITH THAT I RUN OFF THROUGH THE LARGE SWINGING DOUBLE DOORS NEARLY FLATTERED SOME PRE-PUBESCENT KID IN A WHEELCHAIR.  I SHOUT T THE RECEPTIONIST ACROSS THE ROOM

“PATRICK MULLALY WHERE”

SHE SEES MY GRIEF MY PAIN MY TERROR.

“ROOM 214 UP THOSE STAIRS THIRD LEFT THEN SECOND DOOR ON YOUR RIGHT.”

AND IM GONE RUNNING FAST AS I CAN TRYING FOR ONCE TO BE WERE I SHOULD BE WHEN I SHOULD BE THERE.

I FLY THROUGH THE DOOR NEARLY TAKING IT OF ITS HINGES I’M PANTING IM IN PIECES I SEE MARY SO RADIENT JUST THE WOMEN I KNEW SHE’D BECOME. TIME SEEMS TO STOP AS OUR EYES MEET.
THEN OUR THOUGHTS ARE INTERUPPTED BY THIS OLD GAVEL  VOICE.

“WELL YOU TOOK YOUR TIME!  I NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D NEARLY MISS MY DEATH”

The thought hits me my fathers alive I made it.  My knees buckle my tears flow As I slump on the floor.


Wood Count: 878