Date Posted:07:06:20 11/01/03 Sat Author:Raphaela Author Host/IP: webcacheB04a.cache.pol.co.uk / 195.92.168.166 Subject: Re: the rest of "Mother": a short story In reply to:
Ashley Owen Smith
's message, "the rest of "Mother": a short story" on 23:37:48 10/01/03 Wed
Thanks for the follow up, which explains some of the missing facts.
Not sure about the credibility of the paramedic giving the cook coffee though? Not usually a good idea from a first aid point of view.
Good to see you here and look forward to reading more from you.
Feel free to comment on the other posts.
R
>*****
>
>
> The fact that she might suddenly smell smoke had
>quickly become Myrtle Kleinschmidt’s greatest fear;
>even taking the place of spiders and high places.
> She had been sitting on her barstool numbly,
>absolutely terrified that Mr. Pendleton would light
>one of those matches and they’d go up in flames.
> And when the smoke billowed slowly, silently under
>the kitchen door, Myrtle’s heart seemed to freeze in
>her chest.
> Fire! Fire! her mind screamed. But her feet wouldn’t
>move. They felt as if they were in a bucket of
>hardened cement.
> She stared at the gray smoke, smelled it.
> It’ll be my doom, she thought calmly. My doom.
> The paralysis broke and she could move.
> She jumped down off the barstool, ran for the door.
> She slid in a puddle of consomme that she’d been
>meaning to wipe up. She fell to the ground with what
>seemed to be slow motion, like in one of those action
>movies her Gil had loved so much. Her right leg bent
>at an impossible angle, and she heard the bone snap.
> Will I die now? she asked some internal part of her.
> Yes, it answered promptly.
> Like hell I will. It ain’t over ’til the fat lady
>sings, and I haven’t sung a note, she replied.
> The smoke was very thick above her now, and she was
>glad that she was on the ground so long as she had to
>be here.
> She raised her head to assess her predicament.
> She had been sitting on the barstool, the backdoor
>behind her. She had jumped off it and ran for door,
>had slipped between the stove and the central island.
>This is where she’d fallen.
> Myrtle rolled over to her considerable stomach, and
>crawled on her elbows towards the stove. She grasped
>the first thing her fingers touched: the oven door’s
>handle. Not knowing this, she beared her weight–all
>one hundred and forty-five pounds of it–on the handle,
>began to pull herself up.
> The oven’s door snapped open, broke off the oven
>itself, and delivered Myrtle to the floor. She let
>out an ooof sound and tasted blood on her lips where
>the impact with the floor had split it.
> “Ooooh,” she said, her voice wavering with pain.
> She breathed deeply for a few moments, and then tried
>getting to her knees. She made it to her knees, but
>the pain, firing up from the point where her leg bone
>had cracked, slammed her back down to the ground. She
>caught herself on her hands wincing as her palm was
>pricked by a piece of the shattered glass from the
>oven door’s front.
> “Dammit!” she said vehemently.
> She crawled on her elbows closer to the central
>island, this time only putting her weight on her left
>knee, holding desperately onto the edge of the island.
> Her left hand was slick with blood, but she managed.
>She stood up shakily, only standing on her left foot.
>The smoke immediately began making her eyes water,
>making her nose and throat close up in protest. She
>hobbled precariously to the door. She opened it and
>nearly fell down the three brick steps that led down
>from the threshold. She hopped down these with the
>utmost care, made it halfway around the house before
>having to stop and take a breather.
> At last, making it to the front of the house, she was
>fearful afresh. She had nothing to hold onto to help
>her keep her balance. Pushing herself off from the
>wall, she hopped quickly, momentum carrying her too
>fast. She fell onto the thick, lush grass of the
>front yard, a grunt forced from her mouth.
> Myrtle turned her head so that her cheek rested on
>the cool, dewy grass, breathing deeply, sweat beading
>on her forehead and upper lip.
> I’ll just stay here for awhile, she thought dreamily.
> I’ll just rest here.
> And she passed out.
>
>
>*****
>
>
> “Ma’am...Ma’am?”
> Myrtle heard the voice, soothing and soft. It made
>her want to wake up, but she had a stronger desire to
>stay here in here darkness for a few minutes more.
> But the voice was insistent. “Ma’am? We need to see
>if there’s anything wrong with you.”
> Myrtle came awake slowly, and the pain of her injured
>leg brought her back fully and she gasped . The
>person belonging to the voice put two strong, capable
>hands beneath her armpits and helped her up. Her good
>leg felt like it was full of pins and needles, the
>knee joint felt as though it was made of jelly and it
>threatened to buckle.
> When the knee bent involuntarily, she swayed forward
>and down, the capable hands caught her, and the voice
>said, “Whoa,” and chuckled.
> The nice paramedic gently and slowly led her to the
>back of the ambulance where she sat. The paramedic
>put a blue blanket around her shoulders shawllike, and
>placed a cup of hot coffee in her hands, wrapping her
>fingers around it.
> Myrtle looked up at the house, and a mournful sound
>escaped from her throat. The house was a smoldering,
>smoking heap of blackened wood and waste. It had
>always been so beautiful, like something straight out
>of Gone With the Wind.
> She drew warmth from the Styrofoam cup, sipped the
>strong black coffee from it. She looked around her,
>assessing her surroundings.
> Several firemen, in their dirty yellow dusters and
>red hats, were milling about purposefully, along with
>several uniformed policemen and -women and medical
>personnel.
> Her eyes soon returned to the destruction of Mr.
>Pendleton’s house and she sighed.
> A man who was standing in the ruins of the house
>looked up and shouted at a short, burly man who
>resembled a bulldog. “We got another body! From what
>I can tell it looks like a man. Bu God only knows: his
>face is melted.”
> Myrtle could feel her gorge rise, but she swallowed
>convulsively several times, and the nausea was tamped
>down.
> A female paramedic walked over to her, raised
>Myrtle’s skirt, rolled her support stocking down, and
>begin wrapping an Ace bandage around her calf and
>ankle.
> “This won’t help very much, but it’ll have to do
>until we can get to the hospital,” she said, smiled at
>Myrtle and patted the older woman’s knee.
> Myrtle sat in the back of the ambulance for an hour,
>and by then most of the hubbub had died down. The
>paramedics were readying her to take her to the
>hospital to have a cast put on her leg after the male
>paramedic had diagnosed the leg as broken.
> No shit, Sherlock, she’d thought, dredging up the
>quaint saying from memory after hearing her grandson
>use it.
> When the paramedics hopped up into the back of the
>ambulance with the nostalgic agility of the young,
>movement near the house caught Myrtle’s eye. It
>couldn’t have been a policeman or fireman because
>they’d left several minutes ago. The only people who
>were still there were the paramedics and a few diehard
>reporters.
> Could it have been a reporter, then? she asked
>herself silently.
> She didn’t think so. And as she looked, a figure
>walked out of the rubble of the burnt house.
> Myrtle gasped, watching, as if in a hypnotic trance,
>the figure floating–floating??–across the front lawn,
>disappearing into a copse of trees on the right side
>of the house.
> I’ve seen her somewhere before, she thought
>wondrously. Where was it? Who is she?
> She searched her memory. Hadn’t she seen a picture
>of her somewhere in Mr. Pendleton’s house? One the
>mantle? In his study? In his painting studio?
> In a trunk! her mind screamed suddenly. She’d seen a
>picture of this lady in a trunk in the attic during
>spring cleaning. She’d taken it out of the frame,
>curious to know who it was. She’d read the back of
>the picture, depicting a pretty, if sever-looking,
>woman, face devoid of makeup, with a natural and
>creamy-looking in the black and white color of he
>photo.
> Those eyes, she remembered herself thinking. This
>woman was so beautiful. But her eyes are so hard, so
>cold, like chips of glacier of ice. She remembered
>she’d shuddered involuntarily, feeling her spine grow
>cold and gooseflesh form on her arms and back.
> She’d removed the back of the old-fashioned picture
>frame (Haven’t seen one of these since I was a young
>girl, she’d thought), slipped the picture free from
>the frame, and stared at the back of the picture,
>nonplused.
> It’d read
>
>
>
>Ursula Merriweather–Pendleton
>January 29, 1938
>In Paris, France
>
>
> in small, messy handwriting. Myrtle had quickly
>replaced the picture in the frame and slid the frame’s
>back cover into its slot.
> Why would Mr. Pendleton have a picture of his mother
>in the attic and not have one in any of the rooms in
>this enormous house? she’d wondered. God knew she’d
>adored her dearly departed mother; had pictures of her
>everywhere. But she decided that Mr. Pendleton’s
>refusal to keep a picture of his mother around was not
>her business. And’d never thought about it again.
> Until now.
> Was that his mother? she asked silently. She felt
>like fainting, returning to the blackness she’d
>succumbed to while lying on the grass.
> But she’d dead. Dead.
> Ghosts? Ghosts?
> “Not under God’s blazing sun,” she murmured out loud.
> “What was that, ma’am?” one of the paramedics–the
>female–asked.
> “Oh, what? Oh. Nothing. Nothing,” Myrtle answered,
>distracted.
> A ghost of Mr. Pendleton’s mother? she asked herself.
> Don’t be ridiculous.
> But...had that been who he was talking to? The ghost
>of his mother?
> She found this very frightening. Very, very
>terrifying, indeed.
> She shivered, feeling nausea roiling in her stomach.
> Mr. Pendleton’s mother? Her ghost?
> Oh, dear God.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>THE END
