Same old story every time

If you know me you know I'm in love with the POST SECRET books, and with the whole concept behind the movement\art project. It is a goal of mine to create original scenes and plays and improvs using Post Secrets as creative jumping off points.

Today I tried a little experiment. I needed a writing prompt and since Aaron is at work I had to generate one myself. Instead of using something lame from the internet (I found some 'wanna be a writer?' sites with the most abysmal writing prompts!) I decided to put my money where my mouth is and try using a post secret as an opening line to a piece of creative writing.

Who is this person, how has their secret affected them? what is their life like? what happens next? So exciting to think about.

Anyway here it is:

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I wished on a dandelion for my husband to die. Watching the tenacious little puffs scatter and careen into the stiff May wind I had a moment of panic—could I possibly gather them all back out before they escape? I even reached out to scoop a few back, detain them from their natural course, abort the wish they carried on their impossibly delicate silk. But it was too late. Too many had stolen away, too quick to be recaptured, too determined to be recalled.

And so my wish, carried on the breeze, was out there in the universe. I prayed, or maybe I simply wondered?—if the seeds of my selfish wish would find fertile soil and take root. Because everyone knows that’s how dandelion wishes work. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, hold it, make your wish, and let the breath out in a gust to send all those teensy seeds into the blue spring or summer sky, and if one of those seeds finds earth, plants itself, and grows into a new dandelion, your wish could come true.

It was done then, and there was no way to un-do it. I wished for him to die.
I can’t say whether I smiled then or not, whether the expression on my face matched the giddy anticipation in my fluttering belly or if it mirrored the grim dread creeping along my spine from my scalp to my tailbone.

Because I wanted him dead. But I was afraid of it too. Of what would happen if… if he really did… if at last I could…

And I was afraid of being punished. Punished for wishing it, for even thinking it. Imagine if I’d said it out loud? I might have been struck down on the spot. I’m not sure who does the punishing for wicked thought or selfish wishes- if it’s God or the Devil or what. I think I was a little afraid that somehow he’d know, somehow he’d find out what my heart wanted, discover that I’d wished him dead on a dandelion and that he’d be the one to punish me for it—worse than God or the Devil.

But when several minutes ticked by in the timid sunshine of that early may, when stormclouds and hellfire failed to manifest around me, and when no steel-toed books came thumping out of the house to get me I forced my shoulders to relax. I made myself take as deep a breath as I could, and I let it out steady and slow and deliberate.

Robins chattered in the maple. They were uneasy because a big Jay lurked on the stockade fence.

Absently I twirled the spent stem of the dandelion between my fingers as I watched the Jay. Such striking birds. Little kids love them. Love to see the icy blue in the garden, love to add Blue Jays to their drawings—not sure whether they should be ‘cornflower’ or ‘cobalt’ or just true blue.

It isn’t till you’re a little older, I’m not sure what age really, that your see the Jay for what he truly is: A bully. I loved blue Jays, just like every other kid, until one summer when I saw a couple of finches chasing one big Jay around the sky above our big maple. Being young and favoring the clever, charming Jay I naturally bristled at the assault and began to throw pebbles at the finches, shouting and behaving as threateningly as I could.

It worked. The smaller birds retreated to the safety of high branches on the outskirts of back yard. The Jay, less intimidated by my onslaught, alighted on the maple and I remember thinking that he cocked his head in gratitude. Then that Jay, clever thing that he was, hopped up the four or so feet between him and a nest I hadn’t even known was there.

I felt such pride then- that I’d helped the Jay defend his nest, protect his family. But when I saw the size of the Jay perched on the diminutive assemblage of twigs and branches something twisted in my stomach. The Jay’s magnificent blue crested head dipped into the little crèche and I couldn’t tell, couldn’t see what he was doing. I didn’t hear any chicks. Maybe the nest was small because he hadn’t finished building?

With a careless toss of his beak the Jay then began to litter over the side of the nest. Flicked overboard these bits of something bounced and clattered lightly over every twig and branch on their way down to earth. The twisting in my stomach grew tighter, like someone was stretching catgut between my pelvis and my sternum. It seemed to take a very long time for the pieces to finally lad at the base of the tree.

I don’t know why but I walked over slowly. I was compelled to see what the little bits were, but something twisting and straining and thrumming inside me wanted only to turn and run back to the house and have lemonade and forget about all of it. To leave victorious and triumphant.

But I couldn’t. I didn’t. Instead I came to see the Blue Jay for what he was- and aggressive, opportunistic, violent creature. He’d done what his nature impelled him to do- he’d feasted on the clutch of finch eggs which, thanks to my aid, had been left undefended and vulnerable.

My grief and guilt were real and sharp and deep. I was only little but I understood what I’d done, what I’d helped him do and I felt sick over it. I threw rocks at the Jay and I screamed at him until he flew off but it was too late.

From that day on I never found them clever or curious or charming. Whenever I saw a streak of blue appear in the garden I would see it for what it was- a crafty hunter. Apsects of Jay behavior that had previously gone unnoticed by me seemed to be all I could see; His once charming call was now no more than a grating shriek, his confident behavior at the feeder was revealed to be bullying, and that regal crest once handsome and grand now read as a warning sign for danger and brawling in the garden.

I might not have thrown rocks or flailed my arms at them after that day, but I felt betrayed by nature and I never trusted Jays again.

Slowly rolling the hairless hollow dandelion stem up and down my index finger and watching the jay’s arrogantly cocked head I wondered if the errant seeds of my dandelion would wind up in his greedy gullet. They eat almost everything they can get their beak around. And if the Jay ate my wish would that ruin it? Or would it plant itself after it had passed through the bird’s system?

The stem was losing its resilience under the ceaseless rolling and it became soft and too thin between my fingers. It split open on my final caress and rewarded my fingers with a sticky white coating. I looked at the broken, bleeding remnant of my wistful, childish game and felt curiously sick. The dangling head of it looked obscene- plucked bald and exposed. The split stalk, limp and oozing, felt somehow too intimate, too private, and I turned my head away.

Without looking where it landed I tossed the wasted stem into the carpet of crabgrass and clover beside my patio chair. Before I wiped my sticky fingers onto my jeans I lifted them up to examine them. They glistened now, the pearly white changing to translucent wetness before it would dry into an invisible film. I brought my thumb and forefinger to my nose to smell the wetness. I knew from childhood that it would assault my nostrils with an acrid, earthy tickle. It smelled green and young and not-yet-ripe.

Slowly I let my tongue slip over the valley at the base of my thumb. I was unsurprised at the bitter, unwelcoming taste that made my salivary glands begin to over produce. My mouth wanted to cleanse itself of this almost poisonous tasting substance and I had to fight the urge to spit. Instead I let the saliva mix with the dandelion sap and swallowed.

A few parachuting seeds had landed on the lawn in little clinging clusters. They rolled and tumbled and some got caught up on stiff blades of grass. A blue Jay screeched and a smallish flock of finches chattered in response. I wondered how long it normally takes for dandelion seeds to grow.