The Stranger

Welcome to The Spot Writers. The prompt for this month is to write a story that starts with “The stranger appeared.”

This week it’s Cathy MacKenzie’s turn. Her writings are found in numerous print and online publications. She recently published WHEN KAYAKS FLY, a mix of fantasy, real life, and gallows humour. A fun read! Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1990589332.

Check out www.writingwicket.wordpress.com for further information on Cathy’s works. 

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The Stranger

by Cathy MacKenzie

 The stranger appeared beside me, not that I immediately realized he was a stranger. I had just slumped onto the concrete steps behind the double doors to the swimming pool and was glaring at the stars. Seconds earlier, I had shrieked to the skies. Was that why this person appeared?  To save me from myself?

“I know how you feel,” he said. “It’s a crying shame.”

Really? He wasn’t your son. How can you possibly understand?

“Too young,” he said.

That much was true. Thirty-six, a fresh life ahead after his marriage ended. Two children. A serious girlfriend. Plans for more children. My grandchildren...

“I don’t know how you cope.”

I didn’t either.

He rambled, on and on. And on... Lame words.

I was mute, wishing he’d allow me my private time. To scream profanities at God. To be careless in grief. To shed endless tears. I was sick of worthless words. Sick of lies.

The sinister stranger disappeared, taking with him his useless, idle chitchat. I cringed at my rudeness, but I was a grieving mother; I had that right. “I didn’t invite you here,” I mumbled.

My hands cradled my cheeks. Tears streamed between my fingers, and I brushed them through my hair, wanting to yank out every strand, grey or not.

I was jostled from my thoughts when someone plopped beside me. Another stranger, I figured. He huffed and puffed as if he’d raced across the yard, as if a fire needed dousing.

What in the heck was this? Grand Central Station? Those were words my mother once spewed. Would’ve been her reply to my question if death hadn’t robbed her before Matt’s diagnosis. Would she, having birthed five kids, have understood something as foreign as child loss? I didn’t think so.

This stranger placed his hand on my knee. Didn’t rub. Didn’t speak.

“I can't believe it,” I said, marring the silence. “My best wasn’t good enough. I failed my child.”

Numerous rollercoasters of life and death were my son’s last days during his last two months. “Why’d he have to endure that hell?” I asked the silent stranger, not expecting an answer. Not wanting an answer.

I gasped, fresh tears streaming. “I wasn’t letting my son die. A mother’s supposed to protect her children, right?”

I swatted at tears. “I found a doctor who rips out hearts, who replaced Matthew’s cancerous heart with a mechanical one, a plastic device pummelling vicious and vocal against his chest, both Matt and the heart kept alive by a monster machine thundering against his ears. Against our ears. One hundred twenty beats a minute. Thump thump thump. No stopping for breath, no deviation from endless monotones of whacking drumsticks trying to thwart the devil.”

I stopped. Had to catch my breath. I hated to share, wanted to share. I needed to remember my son. To keep him alive. Even in death.

“Docs here wouldn’t give him a real heart, couldn’t take a chance cancer lurked. Couldn’t waste a precious heart.” I glanced at the faceless form obscured by shadows. Or a mirage. Had he sensed my sarcasm? Probably not. Even smart people are dumb these days.

Oddly, I was comforted by this person’s passive presence, so unlike the chatty stranger.

“The artificial heart gave him an infection days after the surgery. Then they put him on the donor list.” A little too late, I thought. Why couldn’t they have put him on the list immediately? He could still be here!

I sighed, privatizing the rest of my thoughts: The phone call. His voice! Excitement. Hope. No fear. “I have a heart, Mom. I have a heart.”

Life!

Oh, my son, you’ve always had a heart.

I had wept for another mother who lost while I would win—or so I thought at the time.

I glanced at darkness beside me. “Life’s not fair. Oh, I know, we have to make the best of it. What choices do we have?”

My son had expected me to save him, to miraculously wrench out of his Patriots ball cap a rabbit clutching a magic potion. Oh, how he loved the Patriots. And his new-to-him truck. And the house purchased four months before his illness.

No—not illness! Scourge. The scourge upon his heart. But no worries, docs had said. A meaningless mass, a blip on the X-ray. They’d take care of it.

Doctors were supposed to be magicians too.

“No one saved him,” I said, staring at the sky, talking to twinkling gems. I stood, arms outstretched, trying to snatch one from obscurity. What if that brightest one was Matthew? Could I steal it, return it to earth?

Do stars sparkle when we can’t see them? Are they like trees in the forest that topple without a sound unless we’re present? Do stars hide by day, ever watchful? Do loved ones peep through the void between the shimmers?

I balled my hands into fists and screamed, shed more tears, not caring about silly stars. Not caring about the man beside me, who was still motionless. Still mute.

Too many questions. No answers. I didn’t know what was real, what was fake. What was the truth, what was a lie. What did it mean: life, death?

I once thought I was an exception, an anomaly. I lost a child. How many mothers lose children? But there are lots of us. And I never knew. Too many lights in Heaven shine through the black.

I should have died—not him.

The stranger removed his hand from my leg, disappearing into the night.

Once again, I was alone. Alone with stars that could be souls. And if that were true, I wouldn’t be alone…

 

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The Spot Writers:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/