Creative Nonfiction Sad

It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same, apart from the plaque declaring what she remembered as ‘Woolwicke’ was now ‘Little Beam’. The white painted double garage with its navy blue painted roller shutter doors. The neighbour’s lamppost she used to be able to see peeping over the hedge when playing in the garden, making believe Mr Tumnas was waiting for her under it, even in midsummer. The conservatory she could see from between the bars of the wrought iron front gate. The shadow inside the conservatory that could well have been her mother waiting anxiously for her eight-year-old self to be delivered home from school by the child’s father. A shadow which suddenly moved.

Joanne gasped, took a couple of steps backwards and pretended to be busy looking at the map on her phone, which she hadn’t needed for the last mile and a half. Nothing had changed about the country lane she’d been walking down either – the same twists and turns where parents had taught her to walk facing oncoming traffic (tractors seem so slow until as a pedestrian you nearly barge headfirst into one coming round a turn), the same corner of the field where the farmer’s horse would sometimes be standing, hopeful of an apple. The same elm tree she used to play in, pretending hedgehogs, mice and birds queueing up to move into the miniature treehouses she built for them. That elm tree had been as far as she was allowed from the house – where mother could still keep an eye on her from the kitchen window.

Joanne turned to the path that led past more fields to Crook Woods. The name had thrilled her when she and her parents had moved to the area. Although she was scared when her dad first suggested (“to give your mum a break”) they take a walk to see them. He had to gently explain that the woods weren’t full of thieves. Crook could mean the stick belonging to a shepherd, or the crook of your elbow, he suggested, tickling Joanne in hers. She’d squealed. He’d laughed. Mother tutted. Mother didn’t like sudden loud noises. Ironic seeing as she could be (and often was) the loudest of the three, after a few glasses of red. The glasses she hadn’t smashed when screaming at her husband, unable to let some past grievance go. Joanne had never got to the bottom of the mystery, but was pretty sure it was because her dad had an ex-wife, and as would become startling apparent over the coming years, mother had to come first.

Joanne shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hearing the crunch of small pebbles kicked up onto the grass by passing tractors and reminding her of how her cat, Barley, had used to shuffle his bottom after padding gently across those pebbles two and a half decades ago, then diving for some poor creature he’d spotted scurrying in the hedge. That was before the rules changed and he was only allowed out on a lead around the garden. He’d come back early one morning after having spent the night in the field with the sheep, his miaow having evolved to a bleat, which to mother’s ears may as well have been effing and blinding.

Readjusting her rucksack straps, Joanne began trudging up towards the woods. She turned her phone off. She owed it to him not to be distracted. She’d been burying herself in the lives of others for too long, be they real or fictional.

As she walked, she kept glancing at her feet. Remembering how she used to walk at a fast pace to match daddy’s long strides in the ruts formed by vehicles, while he walked on the wider grassy middle. She felt her bag bouncing softly off her back and thought of how she and her dad would fish the first of the sandwiches mother had wrapped up for their journey. An abundance which suggested mother was thinking (perhaps hoping) they were walking to the next county. They’d eat ham sandwiches, cut into small squares, to lighten the load. Plus it was a small act of rebellion at the strict mealtimes that punctuated their lives.

The woods were growing larger now. She picked up the pace, but still went carefully. No-one around to scoop her up if she tripped. She thought of the time she fell and called out “Daddy!” – a big deal as she’d just recently started calling him ‘Dad’. The children at her new school made fun of her for talking about her ‘Daddy’. So she tried to change.

“Ever the people pleaser,” 33-year-old Joanne muttered darkly.

She listened to the call of some bird and kicked herself for not paying enough attention when her father had described what breed of bird made what cry. The woods became a smudge. She forced herself to think of other things – reminding herself to take cash out later for the B&B that only accepted that form of payment, to look up train times for the return journey, and whether she fancied a bath or a shower later.

After thinking and blinking, finally the woods stood in sharp focus again. She inhaled deeply as she drew up to them, as if standing in a shuttle doorway before stepping off into deep space without an oxygen tank.

Joanne walked into the darkness.

As she tried to remember the way to their tree, she could hear her younger self beseeching her to slow down, to look around. She smiled as she recalled how she used to like to stop and investigate every little thing while her dad had walked on ahead, calling out intermittently for her to keep up. For Joanne this was a day of exploration outside her yellow painted bedroom walls. For him, it was a chance to exercise to counteract the consumption of “your father’s bedtime snacks" as her mother had dubbed them. Whiskey and bowls of salted peanuts.

“More like ‘coping mechanisms’,” Joanne said to a wooden post at the stile she’d paused at. No big hairy hand to help her over it.

A flash of red caught her eye. Joanne hunkered down to inspect it, wincing as her knees popped. She picked up a twig to wipe a leaf off the object. Shotgun cartridge. From clay pigeon shooting, came dad’s explanation in the back of her head, followed by “best not tell your mum you found this. She’d have kittens.” That imagery never failed to make Joanne giggle and she could feel the mirth bubbling up in her again. She briefly considered strangling it, but then just let it take over. There was calamity in the trees above as a flock of birds flew off in fright at the eruption, making Joanne laugh even harder.

She stood up unsteadily, wiped her eyes, carried on. She was lost but didn’t care. She knew from many solo expeditions if you just keep walking for long enough, you’ll get somewhere.

She played with the cartridge, admiring how the occasional streak of sunlight that filtered through the canopy ignited the gold at one end. She would look up later whether it could be recycled. Waste being more of a pressing issue to her now than it was to the little girl who left dozens blooming in the woods in the mid-1990s.

She continued letting her feet take her where they wanted. A pity it wasn’t bluebell season. Seeing carpets of the merrily bobbing trumpet shaped petals always filled her with delight. She tried to forget how mother had berated them for bringing back a posy, adamant they were a ‘protected’ species and asking why they wanted her to get in trouble with the police.

Interrupting her chain of thoughts was the tree, standing with boughs open in welcome, exactly how she remembered. Joanne stood still for a moment, afraid if she blinked it might disappear. When it didn’t, she walked slowly towards it, shrugging off her backpack. She unrolled and laid her blanket down between the knotted roots (“the witches they buried alive instead of burned” he’d suggested in a mock horror B movie narrator’s voice, one distant October).

All their walks, whatever direction, had brought them circling round to this tree. Joanne had been certain this would be the case even now.

Joanne sat for a while there, resting her legs, while the showreel of memories did the opposite. She let them play.

“It’s time, dad,” she said eventually, rising to her feet. She took the box out of the bag.

Even though she had difficulty finding the right words, the right opportunities, to tell him when he was still alive how much having at least one parent who enjoyed her company meant to her, she knew he had known already. As she watched his ashes swirl and dissipate, specks blending into the network of roots, others clouds floating up to settle into the leaves and branches, a peace seemed to hug her heart and confirm that truth. He had known, and she was loved, and that was all that mattered. 

Posted Nov 20, 2020
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18 likes 9 comments

Cathryn V
07:00 Nov 27, 2020

Hi Karen,
Your story has a nice pace and flows well from start to finish. I felt like I was with Joanne on her walk.
--Readjusting her rucksack straps, Joanne began trudging up towards the woods. She turned her phone off. She owed it to him not to be distracted. --
Great descriptions, intimate, relatable story. Thank you!

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18:03 Nov 27, 2020

Thanks Cathryn!

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Thom With An H
21:11 Nov 20, 2020

I am not a technically proficient writer. I write from the seat of my pants and what comes out is usually readable and sometimes even heartwarming but nothing like this. The description was so brilliant I almost think you had to be walking the path as you wrote to describe it so completely. I live in the states but the town reminds me of the ones I see in the show Midsomer Murders. I always feel as if each town is a character in the show and you captured that same feeling. I guess on some level I knew her dad was no longer alive but I allowed myself to think he was right up to the point where she pulled out the box and as she did my eyes welled up with tears as I remembered my mom and dad. Your story was a gift and anytime I receive a gift I say thank you. Thank you so much for sharing this story.

I always ask for feedback on my stories as well. I'm feeling a little guilty doing it this time but not guilty enough apparently. :-) If you have a moment I'd love to hear what you think about my latest story "Silence." It's one of my favorites I've written so far.

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16:42 Nov 21, 2020

Wow Thom, thank you so much for that feedback, it means a lot. I really had to wrestle this story out with pausing at least four times to blub. So sorry you've experienced loss of parents too, but hope they bring you happy memories.

I tried to take note of your comment on another story about the grammar, which helped me in the crafting of this one. When I read through the draft I thought, "okay, that sentence structure makes sense to me, but not necessarily to the reader". It helped me fix a few things, so thanks again!

I would love to take a look at your story - I'll be right over when I can :)

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Philip Clayberg
21:27 Dec 03, 2020

Thank you for writing this story. I really liked it. It's like being in a living, three-dimensional painting.

Just two typos:

"Mr. Tumnas" should be "Mr. Tumnus" (he's the faun that Lucy Pevensie met during her first visit to Narnia in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe").

"trumpet shaped" should be "trumpet-shaped". Unless the trumpet is shaping the petals, of course.

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09:53 Dec 04, 2020

Thank you for reading :)

Dang about Mr Tumnus. The BBC adaptation was one of my faves. And thanks for catching the lack of hyphen. As I usually have to hold myself back from littering hyphenated words everywhere, so it's strange I missed this one!

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Philip Clayberg
21:02 Dec 04, 2020

You're welcome. I've learned on this website, however, that my viewpoint isn't necessarily shared by other writers. After all, I can make mistakes as a reader just as much as I do as a writer.

I saw the BBC adaptation (I used to have it on DVD; not sure if I still do), the animated adaptation (back in the 1980s?), and the movie. I didn't like the movie version as much as the other two.

As I tell myself: You're only human. After all, if I can mistakes, so can everyone else, and vice versa. My goal isn't perfection. My goal is to do the best I can. My late father once told me, "As long as you've done your best -- *your* best; not anyone else's -- then that's good enough." But sometimes it feels like I've set expectations for myself a little bit too high, and I need to lower them down to a level that I can actually reach.

Last but not least: Every writer has their own styles (or styles), and the same is true for every story. I try to keep that in mind when I read a story (not just my own). A story needs to be able to flow its own way (which might not be the way I *want* it to flow), and what worked in one story might not work in another.

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13:17 Dec 08, 2020

I did not know about the animated adaptation. But I'm sure I would prefer it to the recent movies, even though I haven't see those either. They looked to flashy for my tastes.

My mother used to say "you can only do your best". I used to think, "but my best seems to be everybody else's worst." I have a slightly better opinion of my writing these days but I think I need to challenge myself with a project where I don't have just a week to come up with a story. These Reedsy competitions are highly addictive, though.

Very true what you say about style. I find whatever I've been watching or reading seems to seep into my characters voices, etc. I'm just about to finish a P.G. Wodehouse book, so that will perhaps influence the next tale.

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Philip Clayberg
21:34 Dec 09, 2020

I saw the animated adaptation before the BBC live-action adaptation (I have the latter on DVD and really have no excuse not to watch it again). The animated version was okay; it got better as the adaptation went along. I've seen at least two of the Narnia books in movie form. I think one was "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", but it's been awhile since then. I have the books here at home (a complete set in paperback; and the first three or four books in hardback from the 1950s or 1960s). I still don't like the first half of "The Last Battle" (and especially didn't like how Susan got removed from the overall story by C.S. Lewis; she deserved better than she got).

My opinion of my writings fluctuates. Sometimes I like them; sometimes I think they're lousy. A healthy self-confidence and self-esteem would help, of course. But once I stop finish writing and editing a story, it's hard to really like what I did. It usually takes another writer (either my mother or someone on this website) to prove to me that the story was better than I thought it was. The last two stories, "An Artificial Dilemma" and "Bridging the Divide" seemed especially weak sometimes. But I guess I can't avoid that; I can only try to write the next story as best I can. Gene Wolfe once told Neil Gaiman (I'm not sure if the quote is exact), "You never learn to write better. You only learn to write the book that you're writing." I'll have to check Neil Gaiman's "The View from the Cheap Seats" for the exact quote; it's near the end of his essay on Gene Wolfe. It's in the bedroom, but that's about 10 feet from me and I'm feeling too lazy to go grab it right now and check to see if I remembered the quote correctly.

Jeeves is a good inspiration to have. Not sure about Wooster, though.

What tends to sneak into my writing (and my music) are thoughts of my female best friend. We've known each other off and on (it's a long-distance friendship) since late July 1992, and I can *try* not to write about her, but eventually she'll influence it whether I conscioiusly wanted her to or not. When I was improvising my musical composition, "A Bremerton Christmas", on Christmas Eve 2006, I was trying to do it for my late father (he'd suggested that I try to compose a medley of Christmas carols). It started out with me trying to do what he suggested, but slowly, steadily, other thoughts (and feelings) seeped in. For me, it's pretty obvious where the change starts (after about 7 min.) and then it *really* changes after about 20 min. If you want to listen to it (and the slideshow I added to it about 10 years later), just go to YouTube, search for my name and "A Bremerton Christmas". The photos were taken by me, but I rearranged them to seem like a Christmastime journey in the Pacific Northwest.

I agree with you that whatever has been read (and/or listened to) can definitely influence the style of a story. I hadn't intended to let "To Kill a Mockingbird" influence "Breaking with Tradition" as much as it did, but stories don't always do what I expect them to. I have to let them do things their way if I want them to turn out well. Because when I try to deliberately guide them, more often than not, they tend to fall apart, stop, etc., and I abandon them. Almost like trying to teach good values to a child. It works ... up to a point ... but past that point, the child can't be forced. You have to trust that they will do the right thing at least *some* of the time.

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