Mimi
New Member
This is a short story i had written not too long ago. Like everything else of mine, it has not been edited so both editing and comments are more then welcome.
Enjoy!
I myself am not without faults, paralyzed from the waist down and blind since birth, I’m lucky to have my father and his empty tin can. He taught me everything I had known about the world, how plants grow, the way the food chain worked, and how the sun was the source of energy and pretty tans on young ladies. There were also many things he didn’t teach me, things that his friends would accidentally mention at poker games. I now understand why he didn’t talk about those things, but back then his secrecy about certain subjects puzzled me. I never knew what a computer was, what TV stands for, or what electricity meant. There was another aspect of my life that my father never gave me a straight answer about, and that was the reason for why he’d never taken me outside. I had a wheelchair and he had buddies that could help him carry me down the stairs, which he often used as an excuse. I certainly had determination, persistence, and stubbornness towards this goal. Yet he had always somehow managed to elude the question and after many years, I stopped asking and settled on just listening to the stories that he keenly told me.
A lot of his stories were beautiful; he started those stories by describing the scenery. Almost always it was the grass that stood out. He would talk about how each little thread of grass would gather beside one another and cover hills upon hills. Hundreds, thousands, millions of little pieces forming a perfect picture of the complex labyrinth of our world. He would then gather some fresh grass with soil still stuck to the bottom of it and place it in my hands as he continued the stories. His stories were often about relationships; young lovers discovering the beauty of life or kids hanging on to the last strand of their quickly fading childhoods. He would linger on the details of the bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Yet his voice was filled with longing as he send the characters of his stories running to hide under the big oak tree; hiding from the cold, brisk rain that so suddenly fell from the now gray clouds. I had always loved how he described the oak tree. He would talk about the rough, jagged feel of the bark as he placed a piece of it I my eager hands. I ran my fingers along the piece; it really was rough and jagged but only on one side. The other side was, as my father told me, the inside which was very smooth like a finely polished wood. My father would then contrast the rough bark with the oaks magnificent blanket of leaves covering its thin branches. He enhanced the experience by giving me a few dried leaves, which I had held so very gently for the fear of the fragile structure falling apart in my hands. Unfortunately he never gave me live oak leaves, the only live leaves he gave me were tiny and from what he told me, they came from home breed plants. Again I ceased asking about it after the many times that I received silence as the only answer. The stories lasted anywhere from half an hour to nearly the whole afternoon; I could never get enough of them, they were unimaginably magnificent. To complete his stories he would always end them happily, no matter what had happened in the plot. The relationships would end up succeeding and the children would end up waking to another glorious day of their childhood. It had never ceased to amaze me how well he managed to tell these stories.
My father had to work during the long days so I spent them sewing or knitting, neither of them being very manly things to do, but it kept me occupied. Furthermore I had liked the feel of the cloth being pierced by the sharp needle or the complex patterns the coarse wool created. Everything I made had been simple and I knew not whether it looked good or not. It was quite the disadvantage not being able to see what you created, not knowing if the stitching was correct or if the colours matched.
Enjoy!
The Grass
I was always told that the grass was luscious green in colour. I had always loved running my fingers over the sharp edges of each strand. I had always loved the faint aroma that the sharp blades gave out, but most of all I had always loved to picture the hills outside covered in this simple wonder of nature. I had loved a lot of things, things that don’t have the same meaning to me as they once did. I had loved the bitter-sweet smell of flowers, the coarse yet pleasant feeling of leather bound books, the enchanting stories about the wonderful world outside and I had loved the man who told them to me; my father. My father was the only other person I had really known for the twenty short years that I had lived. My mother had died shortly after I was born from a massive heart attack. I had no siblings, and I was told all of my close relatives lived in other countries. I was ok with the arrangement of things; I never felt the need for anyone other than my father around me. He had his faults, his annoying attributes, things that truly bothered me. Like when he would trail off in the middle of stories, never quite finishing them; or the loud, sloppy way he chewed tobacco and spat it out into an empty can, grunting in satisfaction when he heard the hollow ting of the spit hitting its target. I myself am not without faults, paralyzed from the waist down and blind since birth, I’m lucky to have my father and his empty tin can. He taught me everything I had known about the world, how plants grow, the way the food chain worked, and how the sun was the source of energy and pretty tans on young ladies. There were also many things he didn’t teach me, things that his friends would accidentally mention at poker games. I now understand why he didn’t talk about those things, but back then his secrecy about certain subjects puzzled me. I never knew what a computer was, what TV stands for, or what electricity meant. There was another aspect of my life that my father never gave me a straight answer about, and that was the reason for why he’d never taken me outside. I had a wheelchair and he had buddies that could help him carry me down the stairs, which he often used as an excuse. I certainly had determination, persistence, and stubbornness towards this goal. Yet he had always somehow managed to elude the question and after many years, I stopped asking and settled on just listening to the stories that he keenly told me.
A lot of his stories were beautiful; he started those stories by describing the scenery. Almost always it was the grass that stood out. He would talk about how each little thread of grass would gather beside one another and cover hills upon hills. Hundreds, thousands, millions of little pieces forming a perfect picture of the complex labyrinth of our world. He would then gather some fresh grass with soil still stuck to the bottom of it and place it in my hands as he continued the stories. His stories were often about relationships; young lovers discovering the beauty of life or kids hanging on to the last strand of their quickly fading childhoods. He would linger on the details of the bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Yet his voice was filled with longing as he send the characters of his stories running to hide under the big oak tree; hiding from the cold, brisk rain that so suddenly fell from the now gray clouds. I had always loved how he described the oak tree. He would talk about the rough, jagged feel of the bark as he placed a piece of it I my eager hands. I ran my fingers along the piece; it really was rough and jagged but only on one side. The other side was, as my father told me, the inside which was very smooth like a finely polished wood. My father would then contrast the rough bark with the oaks magnificent blanket of leaves covering its thin branches. He enhanced the experience by giving me a few dried leaves, which I had held so very gently for the fear of the fragile structure falling apart in my hands. Unfortunately he never gave me live oak leaves, the only live leaves he gave me were tiny and from what he told me, they came from home breed plants. Again I ceased asking about it after the many times that I received silence as the only answer. The stories lasted anywhere from half an hour to nearly the whole afternoon; I could never get enough of them, they were unimaginably magnificent. To complete his stories he would always end them happily, no matter what had happened in the plot. The relationships would end up succeeding and the children would end up waking to another glorious day of their childhood. It had never ceased to amaze me how well he managed to tell these stories.
My father had to work during the long days so I spent them sewing or knitting, neither of them being very manly things to do, but it kept me occupied. Furthermore I had liked the feel of the cloth being pierced by the sharp needle or the complex patterns the coarse wool created. Everything I made had been simple and I knew not whether it looked good or not. It was quite the disadvantage not being able to see what you created, not knowing if the stitching was correct or if the colours matched.
