Sunday, May 5, 2019

Skid Marks



Linking with Poets United for lovely Magaly's Telling Tales: A Pantry of Prose Month #3 The subject is Phobias.  We can also choose to take an old poem and turn it into a story in 313 words or less. (Mine is 312.)
I hope you will join us!

Note:
This is mostly fiction, only a few details are true.  I took a morsel of what is and ran with it.  I hope you like it.

Photo by Artem Bali from Pexels


Some things we go through in life, leave a lasting mark, like a skid mark on the highway, serving as a constant reminder of what was and what will never be.  From the time I was a child, fear was fed to me like peanut butter and jelly.  It always did get stuck on the roof of my mouth, leaving a taste on my tongue that would not soon disappear.  Fear is like that, it sticks with you and can be hard to swallow and wash away.   I watched my mother and her mother before her suffer from the affliction of fear, and the hold that it can have on you when it is deep inside you.  

I have found freedom and fear do not co-exist in the same place.  If you hold fear, freedom is far from your reach indeed.  When I was 22 years old driving home with a friend from a dinner party, I hit a deer on a country road.  It all happened so fast.  A figure came moving in, my tires skidding on the pavement, and my car colliding with the gentlest of God’s creatures, ending up in a deep ravine. 

That is all I remember; the rest is a blur that crosses lines of the truth and what was never spoken.  I am still here, wishing I could go back and make it never happen.  So many times, I tried to drink away the memory of it, but unlike taking out a bullet in the wild west, the whiskey only made it hurt more deeply.

You see I am still here, but my friend, a wild eyed French major, wearing no seat belt is not.  Gregg was only 24 and had plans larger than life.  I have never gotten behind the wheel again.  It is through this, I came to better understand my mother.  

©Carrie Van Horn 2019

23 comments:

  1. This is a sad tale so well told, Carrie. I am relieved to know it is mostly fiction. I have known that deer darting out in front of the car suddenly. Thankfully, it leaped across quickly enough, but i will never forget the encounter. Was riveted by your story.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carrie this is amazingly beautiful and amazingly painful..i do not know what part is true but if the painful part is true may you find comfort away from its memory..and yes there are so many things that we wish never happened and facing them we get older becomes our test...bkm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Understanding is a powerful and often painful thing. It is so easy to judge behaviors and attitudes with don't fully understand. So easy to get lost in the thought that we know better, that so and so should be less stuck-up, and then... we come face-to-face with the origin of their suffering and the knowledge is heart-squeezing.

    You set up this tale so well, paced it just right, let us see a detail here and there, let us live through the eyes of the narrator, let us care... so that the ending was like a smack of awakening.

    The emotions are very real.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really really feel the fear, not only with colliding with the deer but with someone dying. I think that the fear of cars is very real, and it's probably one of the most dangerous things that we do.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That sense of wanting to alter events is vivid & your description of fear as sticky and staining underscores the empathy that this piece pleads for.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Carrie, this is a very moving story. You definitely learned a lesson very, very painfully. I am not sure what is fiction and what is fact. I won't guess here, but it definitely makes me think. So sad the loss of life too soon - whether animal or human. We can't go back in time and change what happened, but we can learn. As you did. A powerful tale well told.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is incredibly poignant. Understanding and realization are twin sisters .. both powerful in their occurrence. It's not easy to live with one's fears.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, as others have said, it is impossible to tell which bits are fact and which fiction – a testament to how well you have written it. And anyway, that doesn't matter; what is important is the truth of the tale (as distinct from fact) – a powerful emotional experience and a sobering message.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you so much everyone! Prose is a writting i struggle with. The ending is the fiction the beginning is my truth. 😍

    ReplyDelete
  10. I like how you blended fiction and truth to create this sad story. You write prose well and weaved in the ending like a pro.

    ReplyDelete
  11. You used your truth to very good effect here. The emotions you conveyed felt very true and very heart-breaking.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Fear has been well expressed through this tragic tale. I love how the fact blends with fiction and the truth comes out which is a message, an understanding.

    ReplyDelete
  13. That's a powerful story, Carrie. We have quite a few collisions with deer here, some of them fatal, and I have a fear of hitting one in my car, especially as deer visit us in our garden. One winter, I was driving home in the snow, so slowly the car was almost stationary, and a big deer peered through the window at me!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thank you so much Myrna, Rommy, Sumana and Kim. You all are giving some confidence in prose writing and I so appreciate that. Also, that is a wonderful story Kim. I cannot believe the deer was peering right there through your car window. How amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh, this hurts. There are so many times I've wished I could turn back time. I watched my mother's pain manifest in anger. I didn't know the reason until both my parents were gone. I know both of them wished they could turn back time. This is a powerful story.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Susie. It is difficult when our parents suffer in their lives...it does have a great impact on us.

      Delete
  16. This is painful. Beautifully penned.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This was visceral on so many levels. the taste of fear as well as the heart-wrenching tale of death. Well penned.

      Delete
  17. I like your use of language. The way you describe fear; how it tastes, get stuck and leaving a taste that won't soon disappear. You've brought fear close and I can taste it too. You have mastered the art of blurring fiction and fact, the story is moving and beautifully penned.

    ReplyDelete
  18. you have managed to blend fact and fiction so well into a moving and compelling story.
    the whisky can only numb the pain so much, and for a while, but the hurt will always comes back harder.
    this is a brilliant write.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Thank you Khaya and dsanke so much! Everyone is giving me such encouraging words on this story. It is giving me a little more confidence with writing more prose. Thank you all!!

    ReplyDelete

"Our best thoughts come from others." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson