The husband scrambles into his house and slams the door behind him, pressing his back up against the wooden door, pressing his fingers up against that hardwood, pressing. He grunts.
And then he exhales. Sweat drips down his face and shirt. His tie is askew and his heart beats with the pace of a fever nightmare. He puts his hand over his chest and closes his eyes. It is morning, and no morning has ever begun like this. Not for him and, he guesses, not for anybody. He lets himself breathe again, a chilly heat simmering his body. He turns his head, puts his ear to the door. He could peek through the window beside the door, but that would entail looking outside.
He hears no sound, and still nothing pushes against the door. He exhales again, and this time he lets himself feel some relief.
His fingers let go of the hardwood. His back, too.
His mind turns to his wife and son. And faintly, he hears the sound of their simple breakfast chatter from the kitchen. He pictures them in the kitchen, now surely aglow with white sunlight, and the fear slithers away like a snake that vows to return.
He paces. He tries to walk, of course. He tries to be as composed as he can be as he approaches the kitchen, but he only achieves this awkward, shaky pace. He cannot stop his fingers from trembling. And when he appears at the kitchen doorway, his skin looks yellow with fear.
His wife and son are sitting down at the white table. They have red bowls of cereal. A flake hangs off his son’s lower lip. The son’s tongue slides out of his mouth and disappears the flake from view.
When they look up and look at the man of the family—the husband knows that they will read it in his face—everything will change.
His wife asks him with a look, a questioning frown in her eyes. He answers with desperate exhalations and a brief shaking of the head, all that he can muster at the moment. That should be enough for her, for now.
But the boy asks with words.
And the question of his son, that is, the question of a child who wants to know what is going on outside, the husband realized then, is the most difficult to answer.
I really liked this version! Although it is much more abstract (to the extent that readers don't know what is going on outside) you seem to have added more details and emotion. I definitely feel like I am the husband, or at least seeing everything from his perspective whereas before it was a little jumbled. My favorite lines in here are, "His wife and son are sitting down at the white table. They have red bowls of cereal. A flake hangs off his son’s lower lip. The son’s tongue slides out of his mouth and disappears the flake from view." I'm not even sure why, it was just such a great image and so detailed, yet so simple. Also, I think your point is clearer at the end of this version and readers can more easily see what you mean.
ReplyDeleteOoh, shorter! You know, this works quite well, actually. You don't know what's going on, but I think that puts more emphasis on the title and the son's question. There's a tragic meeting of different ages in this and it really extends to other Big Bad Things that our parents had to learn to explain to us. Lovely. Great job!
ReplyDeleteBecause this was so rhythmically beautiful (fun to read to out loud!) moments where the rhythm sort of broke (at least for me while reading it) stood out. The images of a "fever nightmare" and "this awkward shaky pace" sounded clumsier and felt more vague than what is otherwise very specific and smoothly flowing (at times, tumbling, in a good way) prose.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the multiple versions of this theme that I have read, I think this one is the most direct and the most eloquent evocation of the theme that you are trying to convey. The fact that the actual "question" is never identified forces the audience to focus on the question directly--it brings the piece's focus to the impact of the question rather than any eccentricities of the question itself. Good job!
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