Thursday, June 21, 2012

Fate

Originally posted June 16, 2012

Well, it has been a while since I linked up with Write on Edge. I have been blessed with having a multitude of freelancing opportunities come my way, but it has meant an unscheduled hiatus from my personal writing.

This week WOE challenged me with this prompt:

This week we asked you to write a fiction or memoir piece centered around the idea of fate. Your characters (or you, for the memoir writers) don’t have to believe in fate for it to play a role in their lives; sometimes the lack of belief in something makes it all the more polarizing in our lives.

I decided to apply this to my Carly storyline. Had a little trouble with grammar, punctuation, especially on the brother/sister part. So, any critiques regarding to punctuation and grammar would be helpful. I think my brain has just been over-extended these past few days.

_________________________________________________________________________

My brother thrashed in the hospital bed, tugging at the handrails not in an attempt to loosen the restraints. No, it was an uncontrolled fit, a result of the mixture of booze, pot and mental instability. It hurt like razors digging at my skin watching him out of control like this. Unable to find words to soothe his obvious pain, I started breathing evenly counting to whatever magic number would make my own heart stop racing.

“I love it!” he screamed joyfully. His drunken face was twisted into an odd shape of amusement mixed with irrepressible facial tics, another result of way to many chemicals in his body.  If this had been five years ago, and we had been enjoying a night out on the town, I would have been laughing hysterical at his comedic appearance.

Unfortunately, those carefree brother/sister moments had been snuffed out by an ever growing presence of a chemically dependent demon that seemed to want to possess my brother’s body. I watched his hands thrashing, the restraints digging into the bandages encircling his wrists. Tears wanted to fall, but I knew they would be useless and not helpful.

“I LOVE IT!” he screamed louder this time. A nurse poked her head in the door and I held up my hand, signaling that we were fine.

For hours, though it felt like days, I stood by my brother’s bedside listening to him ramble about how much he loved Jim Bean, how pot made him the King of the World and so happy. He explained how fate had determined this night. Fate and genetics were responsible for his actions. Fate was his enemy. He was doomed to repeat the genetic tendencies of bad choices. He never once spoke of being able to create his own fate.

I wanted to tell him that fate was transparent. That fate was feeble, hinging solely on a person’s belief in destiny.  For a man who claimed to be atheist, that God could not possibly exist, I found it amusing that he used fate as excuse to continue to live life in a downward spiral.

I wanted to reason with him, beg him to stop. He was the only connection left to our parents, I kept silent. No matter my feelings about fate one thing was certain. You can’t reason with a drunk.  This night had to be left to fate and I hoped it was on my side.



 

No comments:

Post a Comment