Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ALONE (10/20/22)
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TITLE: Reckless | Previous Challenge Entry
By Stephen Kimball
10/27/22 -
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There, in the sanctuary of her office, she leaned back, resting her head on the back of the chair, and let her mind drift away from her work. She gazed at the photos of her son on the wall, now almost twenty years old. Losing herself briefly in a montage of memories; shining moments that didn’t quite equal out the lifetime of struggles that seemed to be unending.
She was somewhat confident that he would end up okay. She reasoned that if she ended up okay after her messed-up start, surely, he would be alright in the end. After all, he was better than she was at that age. She closed her eyes and wondered if maybe things couldn’t be different. Maybe one day, she thought.
Needing a change of scenery, she wandered out to her living room and flopped down into the easy chair opposite her son. She had been working at home since the pandemic forced her out of the office. The two of them moved here after the divorce a long time ago now. She smiled in his direction, trying not to give away her disappointment. He loved to occupy “her chair”. In his mind it was a game, which if he won, put him in control, which is something he’s strived for both consciously and unconsciously, it seemed to her, his entire life. The other chair was comfier, but it was “her chair” they both coveted.
She wanted to call him out on his behavior. She wanted to ask him where he’d been. She wanted to lecture him for the thousandth time about his messy room and his laziness, but she had no energy left for arguing.
He knew she was upset and tired, he also knew how to fix it. Trouble was, when push came to shove, he just couldn’t seem to help himself. Yet he really did love his mom and while he relished the idea of freedom, he had no means or intent to leave the nest. In fact, he wanted with all his heart to work this out and to live here in peace together and he resolved, within himself, to try harder, just as he had many times before.
They stared at one another in silence, both worried for what might come.
He stood up and walked to his room, which had always been his escape; the one place where he could let his mind drift to anywhere. It was his space, his security. This time, as he entered, he noticed right away its uncharacteristic tidiness. The bed had been made, there were no clothes littering the ground. He glanced into the bathroom, which was hardly recognizable to him. The towels were new, plush, untouched on the rack that hadn’t previously known a towel as far as he could remember. He puzzled at the girly decorations on the counter and the new recliner in the corner that had displaced his historically empty laundry hamper.
His Bible still rested on the nightstand, sans the layer of dust he had known it to accumulate. Reaching for it, it occurred to him, all at once, that he had no substance. He was invisible. The absence of his arm and his inability to grab ahold of this book — a gift from his mom for his 15th birthday — was startling and he moved again to seek his mother’s company in the living room.
There she sat, twisting in her chair until her back cracked. She moaned and then twisted the other way cracking it again —a routine he had witnessed many times before. He stood there, right in front of her, but she could no longer see him. And though he had not intended to leave, at this development he vanished away completely.
She looked at “her chair”, empty now. Then she looked all around at the emptiness that surrounded her, and with a heavy sigh of resignation, she wandered back into her office to finish the day.
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Well done,
Blessings~