Session #1: Bittersweet
Thank you, tompunks for the theme.
Session #1
Title: Bittersweet
Theme: Susie Q. tale
Genre: Romance, though I don't think so.
Summary:
She watched as her family mourned her death; as her baby sister grew, married, and had a family; as her parents slowly became more fragile with age and withered away. And now she watched, unable to be seen or heard as her sister, tears in her eyes, signed the home of their childhood away to another family.
Another family who had no idea what this house meant to her, and how she couldn’t bring herself to leave its walls. Not even if it belonged to someone else now. The idea hurt, but not so much as seeing her family fade before her eyes during these long years. She still didn’t even know why she remained, captive to some unseen force. What was a dead person to do when it seemed the only option left was to die? ---
--- The course of the past several weeks involved a group of movers tearing apart her home, carrying away the old furniture and décor that she knew for so long. First the couches, chairs, and tables. Then the beds, bookcases, and desks. Next were the wall hangings, lamps, light fixtures, and other smaller - but more numerous - items left by her family who would never visit this house. Last were the more delicate pieces: the glass china cabinet and the expensive dinnerware it held, her and her sister’s extensive collection of porcelain dolls, her father’s massive assortment of clocks, including their ancient grandfather clock. These would be sold in an effort to cover the expenses of moving them and gain space for the new inhabitants.
Watching as her home was stripped from the inside out, she wondered if the house modeled the family moving in: quaint and loving to everyone else’s eyes, but hollow and torn in private.
She could hear the footsteps thumping up the stairs to the porch. They weren’t the heavy clumps of the movers. They were lighter, eager; the family was here. She lingered in the doorway of the study adjacent to the living room, watching as they opened the door and slowed to view their new surroundings. The woman went straight to the kitchen. The man was keen on entering the study, so she stepped out of the doorway to give him space. Old habits die hard. After a moment of no one else entering the house, she assumed these were the new boarders - they would never be the owners in her mind - just a middle-aged couple either unfortunate or fortunate enough to never have any children. Curious as to what her bedroom was remodeled for, she headed up the stairs.
She halted mid-stride. It was still a bedroom. Not with her furnishings anymore, nor with the furnishings of a husband and wife. A twin bed was pushed into the corner of the room, where hers once was. The desk stood in front of the window - the very window she would climb on top of her own desk to crawl out of, and drop from the very branches of the old tree that still scraped the glass. The walls were repainted, the upper part white, the lower half dark blue. The sheets were fleece, not satin, and the awards and other items in boxes weren’t hers. But it still felt like her room, nonetheless. And someone was going to live in it.
“Hello?” The hesitant question spooked her - such a silly notion for a ghost - and she pivoted on her foot to see who asked it. A boy, about the same age as she was when she passed, stood before her. He had a hand on the door, holding it partially open as if to use it as a shield. The most surreal part was that he was looking straight at her. Not looking around the room for the cause of some strange noise, but at her. And it was the first time in thirty years that she felt a sensation deep in her gut, telling her that something great had happened - she finally remembered what joy felt like just from his recognition of her presence.
“Can you…really see me?” It was her voice. It wasn’t cracked from disuse as she would’ve imagined. Her voice was clear but uncertain and oh so good to hear.
“Who are you?” Quiet and curious, he made the inquiry.
“I’m Susie, and you’re the first person to see me since I died thirty years ago.”
His name she learned was Zach. Zach sat on his bed in shock until he was called to dinner. During the weekend he ignored her in order to contemplate on the situation until he came to a conclusion Sunday night. “Will you tell me your story?”
And that’s how they spent their days, him describing to her the world past her closed walls, and she retelling life as she once knew it. ---
--- “How did you die?” he once asked. He lay on his bed, waiting to fall asleep.
“I can’t remember all the details,” she answered truthfully. “There was an event I was attending - a winter formal. My boyfriend, Johnny, took me. Instead of coming home, we went to a party afterwards. I remember telling him that I should drive - I think they had alcohol there. He told me he was fine, and we left. There’s a sharp bend in the road somewhere, and it was hard to see in the dark. Along the edge was…a group of trees. We didn’t see it and never slowed down.” She was looking down at her hands, feeling the creep of guilt coming whenever she recalled the accident. Looking back to the boy in front of her, she confessed, “What I regret the most…was never having the courage to tell him what I felt before we died.”
He made a move, almost as if to grasp her hand, but laid it back beside himself. “I wonder,” he whispered, aware of his volume in the quiet night, “if maybe that’s the reason why you’re still here. Why you’re a ghost that hasn’t moved on.”
She looked out the window, past the tree branches and leaves, to the starry sky. “I wonder if he was able to move on,” she murmured. “He never had any regrets - he never took anything for granted.”
As the silence filled the void made with the ceasing of their speaking, Zach drifted into a light slumber. Susie sat at his desk, watching him sleep while recalling distant memories of her and Johnny. Looking at him now, she could pick out so many details between the two boys that were similar. Then again, it’s easy to see what you want in someone else when you’re searching for it. When the time came, would she be able to see what she needed and not what she wanted? ---
--- “Do you know why I decided to speak to you before?” he asked her one Sunday afternoon. He was lying on the bed, and she sat at his desk - their usual places. “Ultimately, I think it was because, even though I had never met you, you felt so familiar to me.” He chuckled. “Sounds crazy even for someone who’s talking to ghosts, huh?”
“Not really,” she answered, looking down at her hands as she did when nervous. “When I sit here, while everyone’s asleep, it’s hard not to think back on the past. Not just the unpleasant memories, but the good ones as well. Sometimes, you remind me so much of Johnny, it hurts.” She looked up to see him looking back, an expression of hard concentration on his face. He was hanging onto her every word.
For the first time, he reached up to touch her. He wavered just short of her face, but completed the movement. And instead of his hand passing through her as they both feared, it stopped on her cheek. Instantly, he was drawing her close, holding his cheek against hers.
She gasped in between her sobs, unable to control them as relief swept over her. “I’ve found you, I’ve found you,” she whispered over and over, chanting it as a magic mantra.
He pulled back once her sobs ceased, and held her face. “Listen, Susie. This is going to be hard, especially for you, now that we’ve found each other. But, Susie, it’s time for you to move on. I had no regrets - I loved you, and even though I didn’t say it, I knew you understood that. I’ve been able to continue on; you need to as well.” She didn’t want to hear it - not when they were finally together again. “Susie, I need you to say it. I need you to tell me that you love me. We’ll be together in another lifetime, I promise you. If you truly love me, you’ll let me go for now until we can have a life together. Do you understand?”
Susie nodded. She knew it was what needed to be done, but she wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t have the courage to let him go and know he would return to her. She began sobbing again, but out of sorrow. He smoothed her hair back, and quietly urged her let her soul be at rest.
“Promise that in our following lives, you’ll always search for me.”
“I promise,” he told her. “I promise, no matter what, I’ll continue to look for you.”
“I love you,” she whispered desperately. She grasped onto his shirt, already feeling herself departing. “I love you, I love you.”
He grasped her face, and pushed the hair from her eyes, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Tenderly, he pulled her close to him once more. He kissed every feature before meeting her lips, and caressed them with passion, want, and affection that he couldn’t give her for the rest of this lifetime.
“I love you, Susie,” he said with conviction as she began to visibly fade. He stroked her cheek once more before he was unable to touch her again. She gave him a bittersweet smile as they parted - her to create a new life, and him to continue the one he found.
No one can say whether Susie and Johnny were together in another life. We don’t recall our past lives, or do so with enough clarity, for anyone to be sure. But one thing is for certain: when two souls’ destinies are intertwined when written, they become star-crossed lovers whose fate no man has the power to change.
END.
(All the drama wound up in the end. ):)
Session #1
Title: Bittersweet
Theme: Susie Q. tale
Genre: Romance, though I don't think so.
Summary:
She watched as her family mourned her death; as her baby sister grew, married, and had a family; as her parents slowly became more fragile with age and withered away. And now she watched, unable to be seen or heard as her sister, tears in her eyes, signed the home of their childhood away to another family.
Another family who had no idea what this house meant to her, and how she couldn’t bring herself to leave its walls. Not even if it belonged to someone else now. The idea hurt, but not so much as seeing her family fade before her eyes during these long years. She still didn’t even know why she remained, captive to some unseen force. What was a dead person to do when it seemed the only option left was to die? ---
--- The course of the past several weeks involved a group of movers tearing apart her home, carrying away the old furniture and décor that she knew for so long. First the couches, chairs, and tables. Then the beds, bookcases, and desks. Next were the wall hangings, lamps, light fixtures, and other smaller - but more numerous - items left by her family who would never visit this house. Last were the more delicate pieces: the glass china cabinet and the expensive dinnerware it held, her and her sister’s extensive collection of porcelain dolls, her father’s massive assortment of clocks, including their ancient grandfather clock. These would be sold in an effort to cover the expenses of moving them and gain space for the new inhabitants.
Watching as her home was stripped from the inside out, she wondered if the house modeled the family moving in: quaint and loving to everyone else’s eyes, but hollow and torn in private.
She could hear the footsteps thumping up the stairs to the porch. They weren’t the heavy clumps of the movers. They were lighter, eager; the family was here. She lingered in the doorway of the study adjacent to the living room, watching as they opened the door and slowed to view their new surroundings. The woman went straight to the kitchen. The man was keen on entering the study, so she stepped out of the doorway to give him space. Old habits die hard. After a moment of no one else entering the house, she assumed these were the new boarders - they would never be the owners in her mind - just a middle-aged couple either unfortunate or fortunate enough to never have any children. Curious as to what her bedroom was remodeled for, she headed up the stairs.
She halted mid-stride. It was still a bedroom. Not with her furnishings anymore, nor with the furnishings of a husband and wife. A twin bed was pushed into the corner of the room, where hers once was. The desk stood in front of the window - the very window she would climb on top of her own desk to crawl out of, and drop from the very branches of the old tree that still scraped the glass. The walls were repainted, the upper part white, the lower half dark blue. The sheets were fleece, not satin, and the awards and other items in boxes weren’t hers. But it still felt like her room, nonetheless. And someone was going to live in it.
“Hello?” The hesitant question spooked her - such a silly notion for a ghost - and she pivoted on her foot to see who asked it. A boy, about the same age as she was when she passed, stood before her. He had a hand on the door, holding it partially open as if to use it as a shield. The most surreal part was that he was looking straight at her. Not looking around the room for the cause of some strange noise, but at her. And it was the first time in thirty years that she felt a sensation deep in her gut, telling her that something great had happened - she finally remembered what joy felt like just from his recognition of her presence.
“Can you…really see me?” It was her voice. It wasn’t cracked from disuse as she would’ve imagined. Her voice was clear but uncertain and oh so good to hear.
“Who are you?” Quiet and curious, he made the inquiry.
“I’m Susie, and you’re the first person to see me since I died thirty years ago.”
His name she learned was Zach. Zach sat on his bed in shock until he was called to dinner. During the weekend he ignored her in order to contemplate on the situation until he came to a conclusion Sunday night. “Will you tell me your story?”
And that’s how they spent their days, him describing to her the world past her closed walls, and she retelling life as she once knew it. ---
--- “How did you die?” he once asked. He lay on his bed, waiting to fall asleep.
“I can’t remember all the details,” she answered truthfully. “There was an event I was attending - a winter formal. My boyfriend, Johnny, took me. Instead of coming home, we went to a party afterwards. I remember telling him that I should drive - I think they had alcohol there. He told me he was fine, and we left. There’s a sharp bend in the road somewhere, and it was hard to see in the dark. Along the edge was…a group of trees. We didn’t see it and never slowed down.” She was looking down at her hands, feeling the creep of guilt coming whenever she recalled the accident. Looking back to the boy in front of her, she confessed, “What I regret the most…was never having the courage to tell him what I felt before we died.”
He made a move, almost as if to grasp her hand, but laid it back beside himself. “I wonder,” he whispered, aware of his volume in the quiet night, “if maybe that’s the reason why you’re still here. Why you’re a ghost that hasn’t moved on.”
She looked out the window, past the tree branches and leaves, to the starry sky. “I wonder if he was able to move on,” she murmured. “He never had any regrets - he never took anything for granted.”
As the silence filled the void made with the ceasing of their speaking, Zach drifted into a light slumber. Susie sat at his desk, watching him sleep while recalling distant memories of her and Johnny. Looking at him now, she could pick out so many details between the two boys that were similar. Then again, it’s easy to see what you want in someone else when you’re searching for it. When the time came, would she be able to see what she needed and not what she wanted? ---
--- “Do you know why I decided to speak to you before?” he asked her one Sunday afternoon. He was lying on the bed, and she sat at his desk - their usual places. “Ultimately, I think it was because, even though I had never met you, you felt so familiar to me.” He chuckled. “Sounds crazy even for someone who’s talking to ghosts, huh?”
“Not really,” she answered, looking down at her hands as she did when nervous. “When I sit here, while everyone’s asleep, it’s hard not to think back on the past. Not just the unpleasant memories, but the good ones as well. Sometimes, you remind me so much of Johnny, it hurts.” She looked up to see him looking back, an expression of hard concentration on his face. He was hanging onto her every word.
For the first time, he reached up to touch her. He wavered just short of her face, but completed the movement. And instead of his hand passing through her as they both feared, it stopped on her cheek. Instantly, he was drawing her close, holding his cheek against hers.
She gasped in between her sobs, unable to control them as relief swept over her. “I’ve found you, I’ve found you,” she whispered over and over, chanting it as a magic mantra.
He pulled back once her sobs ceased, and held her face. “Listen, Susie. This is going to be hard, especially for you, now that we’ve found each other. But, Susie, it’s time for you to move on. I had no regrets - I loved you, and even though I didn’t say it, I knew you understood that. I’ve been able to continue on; you need to as well.” She didn’t want to hear it - not when they were finally together again. “Susie, I need you to say it. I need you to tell me that you love me. We’ll be together in another lifetime, I promise you. If you truly love me, you’ll let me go for now until we can have a life together. Do you understand?”
Susie nodded. She knew it was what needed to be done, but she wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t have the courage to let him go and know he would return to her. She began sobbing again, but out of sorrow. He smoothed her hair back, and quietly urged her let her soul be at rest.
“Promise that in our following lives, you’ll always search for me.”
“I promise,” he told her. “I promise, no matter what, I’ll continue to look for you.”
“I love you,” she whispered desperately. She grasped onto his shirt, already feeling herself departing. “I love you, I love you.”
He grasped her face, and pushed the hair from her eyes, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Tenderly, he pulled her close to him once more. He kissed every feature before meeting her lips, and caressed them with passion, want, and affection that he couldn’t give her for the rest of this lifetime.
“I love you, Susie,” he said with conviction as she began to visibly fade. He stroked her cheek once more before he was unable to touch her again. She gave him a bittersweet smile as they parted - her to create a new life, and him to continue the one he found.
No one can say whether Susie and Johnny were together in another life. We don’t recall our past lives, or do so with enough clarity, for anyone to be sure. But one thing is for certain: when two souls’ destinies are intertwined when written, they become star-crossed lovers whose fate no man has the power to change.
END.
(All the drama wound up in the end. ):)