Lost Dreams

Lost Dreams
Entry for Writer’s Cramp
Word Count: 730
    She looked stunning in that black dress. Plunging neckline and sapphires blinking on ear lobes. Smooth skin, and a crimson mouth. Stunning. I gazed across the party hall, sitting on my wheelchair. The cold weather kicked the rheumatoid arthritis back again. My daughter thought it would be safer to bring the chair along. Who cared about being safe any way. I had enough pelvic fractures to last for my remaining life time. Bored and sleepy, I felt out of place, just like the French say, I felt like hair in soup... Soft notes of hearty laughter aroused my auditory senses. The face of this lady was mesmerizing. Something about her reminded me of a lost fragment of a memory. A remnant of a distant past. She looked so familiar too. With my weak eye sight, I decided to roll in closer for a better look.
    She was at the arm of an older man. The man with his horn rimmed glasses looked like Aldo, who I still loved, but could never marry. I had to make a choice, and I had sacrificed my love. Regret had become an auxiliary organ of my body. Never letting me forget what I had let go. I am still not over him. Married for 32 years and widowed 12 years ago, I still had nightmares of marrying him, but his face would turn into my husband’s. I would wake up mourning my loss the next day. I never found peace in the life long mourning process.

         The lady looked even more beautiful up close. She caught me staring.
She stared back. Her face placid and emotionless. Strange. She gave me another piercing stare, before she went back into her conversation. I caught snippets of it.
“I will be travelling to New Jersey, as a visiting faculty in Science and Technology. Please make sure you have the papers ready for me...” She said.
"Ms Aura, the team has it ready in a USB, you will find it on your desk on Monday. I was wondering if there is enough material supported by evidence on that Human-Technology paper." A younger lady asked.
Ms Aura? I strained my ears.
“I know, but we already have the research covered in the lab, we don't want to reveal everything, yet.” Her tone was authoritative.
"Ms Aura, I love your work in your Human-Tech...", a young man tried to grab her attention. The lady in black beamed with pride, “Thank you so much, please join me in my Book Tour at the Barnes’ and Noble...”

So she was a distinguished professor and a writer.

         Guilt and hurt, uprooted themselves again. Wasn't that what I had planned to do with my life? But then marriage to Ryan had changed all that. We had four babies in five years, and he had made it clear that I would do the household while he would do the bread winning.
Another sacrifice. I thought I had dealt with that one, but apparently not. I still envy a successful woman. So she must be that, just another successful woman. As if sensing my thoughts with an uncanny accuracy, the lady stopped her discussion abruptly. All the animation lost from her face, donning a look of anger. She looked at me directly. “Wake up woman.” she was now too close to my wheelchair, bending lower, she gave me an advantage to look hard at her.
         I felt cold, all warmth leaving my body.
“Look at me.” I inhaled my favorite Burberry's perfume, I could recognize that any where.
“Who am I?” She hissed, seething in rage.
As if returning from a life time of disorientation, I made out the long lost face; it was me.
The lady was my youth.
She was all I could have been, but never was.
She was my regret, my loss.
She was my lost dream, now haunting me, searing me with her anger.

         My right arm throbbed with pain. Panic and pain impulses travelled up my upper arm and ebbed into my heart. I felt myself in a grave, alive.
“Oh my God, Ms Aura?? Are you alright?” I saw my daughter’s friend rushing towards my wheelchair.
The last thing I heard was my daughter scream, “Someone call 911, she’s having a heart attack!”
The End