Friday, October 2, 2009

Wordzzle on dreams Part III

Over at Views from the Raven's Nest, a Wordzzle challenge is posted weekly. The basic idea is to use all 10 words provided in a short paragraph (plus mini challenge words if you can). More information can be found here.



This week's words are (family, cheese cake, 20 years ago, refrigerator, laugh and the world laughs with you, bath brush, zombies, African violets, butterflies, holding hands) with a mini challenge of (monsters in the closet, roughly, bowling, menu, Pennsylvania).

For dreams parts I and II go here and here.

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Lizzy, her daughter, thought that she didn't understand dreams. Lizzy was wrong. Almost 20 years ago, before Eleanor had a family, she'd had her own dreams. He had been so charming...

As they walked through the African violets, watching the butterflies and holding hands, she had dreamed of their wedding. He would marry her and take her away from this place to live near his family in Pennsylvania. There would be a beautiful wedding and she would put the violets in her bouquet to remember this day. The menu would be perfect and they would serve cheesecake to their guests and it would be beautiful.

Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to. The man she thought he was turned out to be just a fairy tale and he became the monster in the closet. He'd gotten what he wanted and all dreams of a wedding and a life together were proven to be just that. Dreams. She had taken it rather roughly at first. She had walked around like a zombie, so wrapped up in herself. Then she'd found out... For all he had taken from her, he had left something behind.

It changed her world to know that there was a life growing inside of her and it was then she knew that it was time to grow up. This was not the life she had planned on but it was hers nonetheless. She felt she owed it to her baby, her Lizzy, to live that life as best she could. She got a job as a housekeeper. She scrubbed floors and refrigerators. She picked up the bath brushes and put away the laundry. She took on a new attitude towards life. No, she hadn't planned on the highlight of her weeks being bowling night with the PTA. But every morning she told herself that, though she hadn't known it, this was the life she was meant to live. She would look in the mirror and say something like, 'tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet' or 'laugh and the world laughs with you'. Or, more often than not, 'Life goes on'.

The thought had never occurred to her that, despite giving up everything for her child, Lizzy would resent her and want to get away. But she did. It was obvious she was looking for her own way out. And rather than let her try to get out the way her mother had, Eleanor decided to help.

9 comments:

  1. Wow! What a fantastic use of some pretty horrible words. I can see your two characters and feel their pain. that's good writing.

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  2. Very eloquent. I look forward to seeing what Eleanor will do to help Lizzy.

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  3. Children and (wordzzle)stories... You never quite know what is going to happen... ;)

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  4. Beautifully done. I too look forward to seeing what comes next. Life does too often take us on roads we hadn't expected to walk... at least mine has.

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  5. oooh ooohhh you could have written about me. I'm from PA!

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  6. Excellent writing this week. Looking forward to more!

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  7. what an epic little story!... great use of the words :-)

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  8. We dragons like your story. You humans are always in such a hurry to marry. Such sad results.

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  9. Hmn, good story. We never really grow up until we have kids; why is that?!

    MommyWizdom

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