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

The Visitation

~This photo was taken in the house my grandparents lived in, and I am the awkward little girl sitting by my grandmother.~

Linking with Poets United for "Telling Tales" with the lovely and amazing Magaly Guerrero

for A Pantry of Prose # 2 ~ Magical Realism

Come join us!

Some people have had lost loved ones visit them in their dreams, and believe me when I say, this has happened to me many times.  It always leaves you feeling both comforted and saddened at the same time.  Like re-bruising an old injury brings the pain back to the surface.  This story takes it a step further.

When I was growing up, my maternal grandparent’s home was my summer vacation home, and where I stayed for most holidays, and many weekends.  It was more than a visit when I went to Grandmaw and Grandpaw’s house.   That house was my favorite place in the whole world! There was so much sadness, and hard silences at home, so their house was a lovely home to me and a place of refuge for my heart.

We had a peaceful routine, and they both spent true time with me; telling stories, singing songs, indulging me with my silly performances with a cassette recorder and my talk shows that I made up including them in the skit.  It was no lie that I was much closer to my grandparents than I was my own parents.

 Then sadly, from the time I was 13 to 16 years old I lost both my Grandparents; my Grandmaw to pneumonia, and later my Grandpaw passed in his sleep.  The phone call I got for him was devastating.  I had lost them both, and I went through a depression for many months.

Time does have a way of easing the pain, but for 30 years after that time I dreamed of that house every single night! It was as if it was a beautiful ghost comforting me with a visitation in my dreams.  You see that house represented all that was close to my heart; my Grandparents, the joy we shared, and the peace of a happy and secure place.

 It still visits me to this day. 

Note:

I need an editor with me at all times, so if there are major rule and punctuation errors in this, that is why. I do love these prose prompts, because they make me stretch out of my comfort zone some.  Thank you Magaly for helping us spread our wings!