TheBanyanTree: WHEN DREAMS END*AND LIFE BEGINS

[Sharon Mack]

>From my writing workshop...

Story Challenge #1

Alyssa had always held big dreams of living in a city where she could 
grow as a freelance photographer. She loved snapping pictures of 
everything and everyone. Then, one day...


ALL YOURS! :) WHO WILL TAKE THE CHALLENGE? :)

***********************************

WHEN DREAMS END*AND LIFE BEGINS 

Alyssa had always held big dreams of living in a city where she could grow as a freelance photographer. She loved snapping pictures of everything and everyone. Then, one day it all came to an abrupt end.  All of her dreams, all of her plans, everything she had hoped for was gone...gone in an instant.  A solitary tear trickled down the left side of her face into her ear.  She couldn't even stop a simple tear.  How could she live?  What would she do for the rest of her life?  She moaned.  Her physical pain was at a minimum now with all the paralysis and medication but the spirit pain was more than she could bear.  The spirit pain kept returning in huge surges.  They washed over her as her thoughts continued past the present and back into the past.

Alyssa couldn't remember all of the accident, just the beginning and the end after she had awakened in the hospital bed.  Her family was standing around her bed.  They had looked so serious and glum that she knew in an instant that it was bad*and it was.  Alyssa was paralyzed from her neck down.  She would be in a wheelchair all her life.  She couldn't perform the most mundane of tasks, like dressing herself, feeding herself...or taking photos.   The photos, her precious photos.  The thought brought another tear.  Her ear felt quite wet by now.  She could call a nurse but the thought of having to ask for someone to wipe tears from her ears made her feel even worse.  She wished the accident had killed her.  

She thought about suicide and laughed a smug laugh.  "Ha," she thought, "I can't even kill myself.  Nope, no suicide for me...no way out, no way out for the cripple, no fucking way out."

Alyssa turned her head to the right hoping to let the tears fall onto the pillow rather than in her ears.  It hurt to turn her head, but she forced it as best she could.  She looked out the window and could see the tops of the trees blowing in the cool fall air, their gold and brown leaves scurrying through the sky downward until she couldn't see them anymore.  She wished she could join them.  She wished she could make herself small and brown and float down, down, down to the earth, down to where death might be.

Alyssa wondered if anyone had bothered to call the newspaper.  They would be wondering what the hell happened to her.  They were expecting the 'back-to-school' photos for Paul's 'opening day' piece he was writing.  The children had looked so sweet as mothers and fathers dropped them at the school door, lining them up with their particular classroom teacher at the head of each line.  Some children cried, some were silent, some of the older ones were glad to be back.  The older kids greeted their friends with high-fives and various handshakes.  The most poignant moment of all was when Alyssa happened to catch a young mother whose child was in Kindergarten weeping under a tree.  Alyssa heard her saying to her friend, "....she's so small, she's still a baby."  Alyssa took the photo.  She took the photo of the small child walking away from the mother to stand in line.  Alyssa took lots of photos that the morning.  She wanted to capture every aspect, every emotion of the "first day." 

Finally, as the lines of children began moving into the building Alyssa had turned away, satisfied that she had done a good job.  Before she had finish capping her lens the red car had turned the corner in the circular drive leading to the front of the school.  She remembered vaguely seeing it coming toward her.  Remembered screaming at the top of her lungs for it to stop.  That was all she could remember.  Her mother had told her the rest in a solemn quiet voice. *that the red car had not stopped, or even slowed down and as the car hit her she had been thrown first onto the wind shield crashing the glass with her head and later, as the driver sped off, she'd slid off the top of the car and hit the ground.  They believed that's what had injured her spine.

As the new onslaught of tears and moans exploded from her body she knew she had to find a way.  There had to be a way.  She sobbed and spoke aloud, "People learned to paint with their mouths didn't they?"  She knew she'd heard stories.  She just had to find out HOW!  She just couldn't give it up.  Not now, not for anything.  Suddenly the tears subsided as quickly as they had come.

A nurse entered the room.  She looked concerned and began checking Alyssa's machines...checking, checking checking.  When she was finished she turned to Alyssa thinking she might try to try to comfort 'the poor girl,' but when she did, she got the biggest surprise of her career...she was met with the biggest and brightest of smiles.  

"Hi!"  Alyssa said breathlessly, "You know what?  I think ...I ...I really think...I'm going to be just fine...after all, I'm not dead yet, am I?"

The nurse nodded her head and smiled back.