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Sunday

by Cholero 

Posted: 27 September 2010
Word Count: 459
Summary: Jennifer's Normal Day challenge


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It started like a normal Sunday. They’d done the same thing all their married life more or less, no matter the weather.

They climbed to the top in the misty rain without speaking, he in front pushing the pace, she behind, her view filled by his backpack and his flopping shorts, the hairless slabs of his calves pushing like overworked pistons to get his bulk up the hill. Even when the kids were small he had done this: pressed on ahead, never looking back. To an observer he was the family leader, their pathfinder and pack-horse. But to her it always felt as if he was trying to get away.

She hated it, how he never looked back.

They sat against the summit cairn, each looking at different counties.

‘Down there,’ he said, ‘down there is the world that keeps us locked up. And up here, this is the window high in the wall where you can see a bit of blue sky.’

She reached into her cagoul and brought out a little jar of cream and rubbed her cracked hands, fingers slipping between fingers. She thought of all those times when at this point she would be unpacking sandwiches, putting hats on heads, checking for blisters on young feet. She looked across at him. His hair poked out under his bobble hat, longer than he’d ever worn it. She wished he'd stop saying these peculiar things.

‘It’s all nonesense,’ he said. ‘The whole system, the whole way we’re expected to live. It’s… it’s toxic.’

‘I suppose you’re right, Ben,’ she said. ‘But whatever it is, this system, it’s served us alright hasn’t it? We’re comfortable. We don’t starve.’

‘Are we comfortable? Exploiting others? Not me. And we are starved. I am. Starved of real things.’

She stood up and moved away. The mist cleared as she came to her feet and she saw quite suddenly all around her sunlit countryside and blue skies. She turned her face into the wind, delighting at its touch. Far below she saw a motorway loaded with traffic which cut the landscape like a giant’s crossing-out.

‘Maybe you should go away for a while,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘Somewhere wild. Where this system of yours doesn’t operate.’

‘Ha! Where?’

‘I don’t know. There must be places. Just go. I’ll manage.’

‘Everybody manages. We close our eyes, shut our ears. We silence our heart. Well, not anymore. Not me.’

‘Then, what?’

‘Here. I’m staying up here.’

She told everyone afterwards that he slipped. Everyone but the children. She told them the truth. How their father had stood up and walked to the edge of the gully. How he had stood for a while stuffing his hat into his old coat.

How he hadn’t looked back.






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Comments by other Members



Elbowsnitch at 12:36 on 27 September 2010  Report this post
Excellent, Pete - a great read. The tensions between the couple so well conveyed, through the wife's perceptions of her husband - especially physical details such as
The hairless slabs of his calves pushed like overworked pistons to get his bulk up the hill.


They seem to be inhabiting different worlds and this is underlined by "each looking at different counties". She's able to delight in the wind and see "sunlit countryside and blue skies" all around, not just through a "window high in the wall" - although she also sees the traffic-laden motorway that "cut the landscape like a giant’s crossing-out". Whereas he's entered a realm of fixed certainties and desperation. What he's saying is true and yet not true - and there's no way she can get through to him, release him from his imprisoning perceptions.

Really like the detail of
How he had stood for a while stuffing his hat into his old coat.


Great flash!

Frances

Desormais at 13:15 on 27 September 2010  Report this post
I too loved "the hairless slabs", so evocative. A very good read, a sensitively drawn portrait of a relationship that has gone adrift, and the changes in outlook over the passage of the years. I almost felt I knew the husband.

At the end I thought you were going to say she pushed him off the cliff, so that was an unexpected twist for me.

I enjoyed it. Well done.

Sandra

tusker at 14:37 on 27 September 2010  Report this post
Agree with Frances and Sandra, it's a great read and created a few conflicting emotions for me.

I could feel for his wife, feel their gradual dislocation, if that's the right word, as their marriage bumbled along.

I began to dislike her husband. Hated the way he philosophised. I could hear myself thinking, 'For God's sake, grow up.'

Then he calmly jumped which took me by surprise. So he really was thinking, feeling that way and not just pontificating.

Then I thought, why do it in front of his wife? Did he want an audience for his noble sacrifice? Did he want to punish her?

A story to mull over.

Jennifer



dharker at 19:49 on 27 September 2010  Report this post
Beautifully crafted... I too felt for the wife both during and at the end having to look after everyone while her husband "powers on". A great read... I really enjoyed it
Dave

Cholero at 10:19 on 28 September 2010  Report this post
Thanks Frances, those comments very much appreciated.

Cholero at 10:20 on 28 September 2010  Report this post
Sandra

Thanks, glad you enjoyed.

Cholero at 10:21 on 28 September 2010  Report this post
Jennifer, thanks, mulling always appreciated.

Cholero at 10:21 on 28 September 2010  Report this post
Thanks Dave.

Jubbly at 18:12 on 28 September 2010  Report this post
This is very well written Pete and very concise , not an unnecessary word there. Lovely concept too in a very tragic way of course. Well done.

Julie

Bunbry at 19:22 on 28 September 2010  Report this post
Well done Pete, you have managed to make Ben a very unsympathetic character so we don't mourn his loss - not an easy thing to do in a gritty piece like this.

And very fine writing to boot!

Nick

crowspark at 10:56 on 03 October 2010  Report this post
Powerful writing Pete.

the hairless slabs of his calves pushing like overworked pistons to get his bulk up the hill


Both ugly but poignant at the same time, for as he says,

‘down there is the world that keeps us locked up. And up here, this is the window high in the wall where you can see a bit of blue sky.’


Here's a man whose family, the one loyally at his heels, is not a solace to him but part of his perceived burden for he is, "their pathfinder and pack-horse"

The wife is long suffering, brilliantly condensed in this one scene,

brought out a little jar of cream and rubbed her cracked hands, fingers slipping between fingers. She thought of all those times when at this point she would be unpacking sandwiches, putting hats on heads, checking for blisters on young feet.


Great tension in this, between the wife and husband and between the husband and his life as he perceives it.

A very sad story summed up in the (wise) last sentence. Brilliant!

Send it out.

<Added>

Maybe to a British market?


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