Gossamer Angel Wings | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Gossamer Angel Wings | Previous Challenge Entry
By Elaine Fraser
03/09/15
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The trunk sat in the corner of the study as if it were a person pointing a finger at her.

‘Remember me? I’m the dream-keeper. The one you trusted with your precious words.’ The tone was similar to the one her mum used to employ when she and little sister, Jen had stepped over some boundary.

Kylie sighed and tapped the gold Parker pen against the edge of her wooden desk. What was the point of writing when all that was created was another notebook filled with her drivel?

Max’s hands massaging her shoulders brought her out of her reverie. Her muscles relaxed as he dug his fingers in deeper.

‘How’s the work going?’ he asked.

She could hear the smile in his voice. Sometimes his cheerful encouragement made her want to cheerfully kill him.

She reached back and brushed his hands from her shoulders.

‘Work? It’s not work. It’s just me making up stupid stories and wasting my time.’

Max stepped back, the hurt in his eyes slapped her in the face.

‘Okay,’ he said, stretching the word out like chewing gum.

Why couldn’t she do anything right? He was only trying to be nice. Now she’d put him offside too. It was more proof that she was hopeless, stupid and a waste of space.

He held up his hands in surrender and left the room.

Her study, the special space Max had created for her, should be her happy place. The white bookshelves, the cute cushions, the comfy vintage leather wing-backed chair were selected with love and care. All of it was supposed to help her write her pièce de résistance, her novel.

She was such a fraud. Max told everyone his wife was a writer. That she had given up work so she could write. It had been three years ago and, since then, all she had achieved was a trunk full of rubbish.

She couldn’t even read the stuff she’d written. It was so bad that if she dared to show anyone, they would laugh it off as a juvenile joke.

A slam of a door followed by rampaging footsteps and giggling, announced the arrival of the kids home from school.

It was Max’s day off so he’d made muffins to fuel them up for a couple of hours of after-school play. A sigh of relief at the way Max could take over became ragged tears spilling down her cheeks.

As Kylie stood in the middle of the study, the happy chuckles and storytelling, punctuated by Max’s calm responses, only served to make her clench her fists. She couldn’t even be the sort of mother who would rush out to greet and cuddle her children.

Sinking to her knees and covering her eyes with her hands, she gave into the overwhelming sadness that had followed her since the birth of Sam, their third and final child.

‘Mummy,’ the soft voice caressed her, ‘Mummy, I wuv you.’ She straightened up and opened her eyes. A curly cloud of golden baby hair framed huge brown eyes filled her view. Two chubby arms reached out and squeezed her.

Sam giggled and ran off, full of three-year-old energy and enthusiasm. His little bottom wiggled as he shrieked, ‘I told her, Daddy. I told her I wuvved her.’

Something shifted in her heart. Something pricked at her emotions like nothing else had. Valium. Xanax. Counselling. Psychiatrists. Prayer. Support Group.

It was as if a trickle of life had breathed into her heart. She could feel it. Feel. She was feeling. What?

Joy? Maybe.

Peace? Not really.

Whatever it was disappeared so fast she couldn’t quite grasp that it could be real. The words, gossamer angel wings formed in her consciousness.

If she could put words on what had just happened, that would be it. Gossamer angel wings had fluttered across her heart and sparked something she hadn’t felt for years.

She pushed herself up from the floor and flopped into the leather chair. Her gold pen lay across the empty page she’d been staring at for goodness knows how long and it called to her.

Hope doesn’t come from striving
or even from hoping like crazy.
It comes from God
like gossamer angel wings,
bringing a glimmer of light,
a breath of life
when you least expect it.
When you need it the most.

The pen flew across the page as if an angel were guiding her hand.

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