May 10th, Mindless

     We had two prompts today that we could choose from.  The first one: Choose A Theme And Write A Story That Illustrates It, and the second one was: Choose a piece of music from the list below. Listen through it once or twice and get your mind in the mood of the music. Then start writing.  The choices were: 

Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens

Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland

Egmont Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 (II. Adagio Sostenuto) by Sergei                                       Rachmaninoff

The Planets by Gustav Holst (choose one movement)  

     I listened to all of them, but only the first two and the very last one the whole way through.  As I listened to Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens, my eyes closed and I saw the dancers moving to the piece.  The ballerina stood on her toe with the other leg bent, her arms gracefully moving around her as she spun on her toe in time to the music.  I’ve only seen ballet in movies and such, so I’m not familiar with terms used in this type of dancing.  The visual was poetry in motion and matched the mood of what was coming out of my computer.

     Then as I often do, I went to the park.  As I sat there in my special place, this is what came to me.  Once I’d finished, I realized I’d used one of the sparks I’d written down for the month several weeks ago.  My mood matched the last piece I’d listened to before leaving the house.  The Planets by Gustav Holst, and the movement was Neptune, the Mystic.

     She sat looking at the computer screen as her hand controlled the mouse.  Her on-screen alter-ego was racing through the game as music played in the background.  Just as she’d scale one hurdle and think victory was close at hand, another obstacle would pop-up causing her heart rate to elevate.

     Lost in the intricacies of the game, she didn’t see the little dog at her feet doing his dance to indicate a trip outside was urgently needed.

     The day was a beautiful one, the skies a magnificent shade of blue with not a cloud in sight as the sun shown down on the array of flowers that had been planted over the years.  A red rose bush for their first anniversary, firestix for the fourth of July when she’d told Mark she was pregnant with Billy, calendulas the day they’d brought their son home from the hospital, fuchsias the day she’d found out she was pregnant with Sarah, pansies the day they’d brought Sarah home, and finally violas to commemorate Billy’s graduation from high school.  They never got around to planting the yellow roses for Sarah’s graduation.

     If she were to go out onto the deck that Mark had built—some twenty odd years ago when they’d first moved into the house—she would see the flowers thriving in the summer sun.  She would also be able to see the waves crashing onto the rocks far below, the sound like an overture from one of her favorite composers.

     There was a time when she’d firmly refused to even turn the TV on unless there was a purpose for it, such as the evening news or a movie the whole family would sit down to watch.

     Once both children had started school, she relaxed her stance, needing the noise to fill the too quiet house.  It didn’t take long before the sound of noise from the TV was a natural thing.

     When Billy had come home from school one day, upset because his friends were so much better at the computer stuff his class was working on, she’d talked to Mark about getting one.  They’d set down strict rules that lasted for a while, but as time passed the rules for the computer went the same way as the TV’s rules had gone before them.

     The years passed.  Billy graduated valedictorian of his class.  She’d been so proud as he’d given his speech to the graduating class.  When he’d gone away to college, at first, all of her focus had gone to Sarah, and she tried not to think about her leaving in three years’ time.

     The house grew quieter.  Mark started working longer hours and Sarah was often gone with friends. 

      She heard about Facebook and how easy it was to connect with friends, and they had a neat game called Farmville that everyone was playing.  One afternoon she created an account and found the game, creating her farm.  She limited herself to playing for only fifteen minutes each day, but it was hard to make any progress so she extended the time.  Soon she was making friends and passing them as she finished goal after goal.  Her routine was set, she would get up in the morning and brew a pot of coffee, then fix her toast or bagel while it brewed and then she would take her meal with her to the computer desk.  While she ate breakfast, she would check the newsfeed much as someone would read a newspaper.  Once her food was gone and she’d taken her last sip of coffee, she’d move on to her games. 

     Farmville was first.  She would do everything that required her attention and then she would run through the other games that she’d found.  Candy Crush, Riddle Stones, Royal Story, Klondike, Castleville, and then she’d go to the Casino games.  She was able to forget how lonely she was.

     The first time she’d let time slip away from her, she’d excused it away and Mark had willingly accepted her ruse.  It started getting harder to step away from the computer and do those daily routine things like washing the clothes, vacuuming, dusting, feeding the dog, paying bills, and even fixing the evening meals.

     By the time Sarah graduated, her life was centered around the computer and she resented the time she had to be away from it.  She didn’t see the hurt and confused looks her daughter gave her, or that Mark was spending even more time away from the house.  Just last weekend when Mark had said he and Sarah were headed to the dorm to get her moved in, she’d absently told them to have a nice time and gone back to her computer.

     She sat at the computer, her gaze fixed on the screen.  She wasn’t aware of her husband entering the house, or moving through to gather up a few things before putting them in a suitcase.  She didn’t see him stop and watch her with a sad expression on his face before he whistled for the little dog, picking him up as he ran to him.  She didn’t see him turn and lift the suitcase in his other hand as he walked out of the door for the last time.