Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Break (02/06/06)
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TITLE: The Space Between | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jaki Ffrench
02/08/06 -
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Just what she needed to top of an already dreary night, wincing as the cracked paint scraped off and tumbled down to the floor she slid the window closed.
Rachel seemed more than out of place in an old run down hotel in the middle of no-where. She had always been confident, strong willed and never allowed anyone to tell her what to do. She had made her way – no favors done by anyone. She was self built.
She had felt him abandon her when she was a child, her mother’s death sealing in her the idea that he didn’t care. It was then she decided to do it on her own, she retreated from most people around her and turned all her energy to being successful.
Now alone in this hotel she sat, as if the lingering triggered space to think, and she had no need to run from the thoughts but she wanted to face them alone.
Then the rain fell.
Heart break had come .Then the tears, much as the rain had fallen - slowly at first and then as if someone had broken the banks of tears held in for so many years. Her head resting on the table she allowed the tears slow escape from her heart.
The knock at the door took her again to her feet.
Rachel?” she lifted her hand to open the door and thought better of it.
“No.” Rachel said, almost to herself. “No! I can’t let you in.”
The knocking stopped as she tried to retreat across the room. She knew he was still there, as surely as she could not hide from him.
“I can’t what if… what if you hurt me?” she called out to him the voice of a child.
“I won’t hurt you. I promise to not even break a bruised reed.”
Rachel was tired of this whole thing tired of trying to run her own life, tired of being alone. Tired of the tears, the sorrow that ate at her heart, she missed her mother and her mother’s faith. She longed to be held once more to hear the old songs, the hymns she had heard.
“What happens when I let you in?” She called towards the flimsy door.
“I will be your strength, and go with you wherever you go.”
“Will you take away these tears?”
“No. Those are something you need to learn to cry.” She felt his deep sorrow for her linger in the words.
“I don’t like them.” Her voice quivered just slightly as she tried to sound defiant, adding “Will you make life simpler?”
“No, only you can do that.” His reply was not what she had expected.
She had no control over this.
“You won’t break me?”
“You are already broken, child, I am here to mend you.”
She decided, and knew it was right, that the door had to be opened. She was now not able to hold back the tears as she slowly stood, feeling older than her barely twenty years she opened the door.
“Rachel!” A heavy pounding sounded on the door, which bought Rachel around from her deep sleep. Leaning over she stared at the clock and sighed. It had been a dream perhaps.
“Rachel?” the voices on the other side of the door sounded worried and concerned.
“I’m okay!” she called back, throwing on some jeans and a t-shirt and walking bare footed to the door, and without hesitation opening it to be engulfed in her friends hug.
“We were worried!” They said almost in unison.
“I’m sorry.” Rachel said, inviting them in with a wave of her hand. “I was on a break.”
Slowly like one waking from a dream she looked up at them adding quietly “I’ve been on a break for years; a break is the space between; but I have finally found my way again, and the break is over. I’ve come back to Him.”
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Tighten it up a bit and I think you'll have a winner.