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NOTES:

NEW WRITERS' SHORT STORY COMPETITION 2008/2009
SECOND PLACE

Please note: this work is copyright by the author and may not be used, copied or shared in any way whatso-ever without his/her express written permission. If you wish to be put in contact with this author, please contact us.

This story text appears exactly as sent in by the writer. No changes or corrections have been made; however, all stories to be included in the published Anthology will be edited for grammar and punctuation before printing.

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"Forgiveness"

by Y. Roelofse - Walthourville, Georgia, USA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Y. Roelofse: Author Bio still to come.

COMMENTS FROM JUDGES:

1. Nice unravelling of an internal psychological drama. Simply but effectively written. Positive but not sentimental ending. Unforced exposition of the back story.

2. The writing style grips immediately and the pain and poignancy is there from the start, and holds the reader tight right through to the end. The metaphors are good and the writer paints a strident picture of the way we determine our own moods and reactions, the choices we make that affect us so deeply, and those around us; the way we use our power to hurt others as well as ourselves. At first we don't understand her petulance and want to slap her, but suddenly we are slapped in the face ourselves with the harsh offering of her reality. Very emotive, and the final line says what hasn't been said so far: her trust is restored in him. Excellent. - Title could be stronger.
 

THE STORY:

“This tree is hundreds of years old.”

Your voice is as hushed as the breeze that whispers across the forest floor. I watch you as you rest your hand upon the bark of the ancient tree, your eyes widening in awe as though you feel its heart beneath your fingertips. You look like a child: your face alight with wonder, your entire body vibrating with an emotion that I do not want to recall. You turn to look at me, and whatever my face shows plunges yours back into shadow.

“You don’t care, do you?” you ask quietly.

“Nope, not really.”

My voice is deliberately dismissive, careless; yet I have to look away from the disappointment in your eyes. I hate it when you look at me that way: as though my every word and thought matter; as though each little barb scratches deeper than just your skin. I tug my coat around me to fend off a cold that comes from within, and succeed only in trapping it against me.

“Can we go now? I’m hungry.”

I sound like a petulant child, but any remorse I feel is strangled by the rebellion of my mind. I didn’t want to come here, didn’t want to wander down some soggy memory lane to see one tree amongst a thousand trees. I turn and start squelching back across the broken boards that stop me from sinking into the mud. Who really gives a…

“Sarah?”

I stop, take an exaggerated breath, and turn around. You look somehow tragic and beautiful standing there beneath your tree, random drops of leaf-caught rain falling around you in silver spheres. You would cringe if you knew I’d called you beautiful. A smile, a softness, tugs at me, but I shift my weight and stomp it down.

“Would you, um…”

“…take your picture,” I finish for you.

I could have said it kindly, but I didn’t; and some hidden part of me flinches at the flush in your cheeks, the humiliation in your eyes. You hold the camera before you like an ineffectual shield, turning it carefully in your hands, but you don’t drop your eyes as I expect you to. I shift my weight again under this sudden scrutiny. Something is different and I…

“I want to take your photo.”

“What?”

My voice carries the horror that I know must be showing on my face. I don’t do pictures. I take one step back and miss the board behind me, feel my foot getting sucked down into the mud. I try to pull it free, try to turn my back on you and your ridiculous request, but you’re quicker than me this time. Your hand is firm on my arm, tugging me out of the mud and towards the tree that towers above us.

“Stand here,” you tell me, even as I’m starting to move away.

“You’re not taking my photo, Mitch,” I snap.

“I said stand there, Sarah!”

You’ve never yelled at me before. Inexplicably and irritatingly I feel tears tormenting my eyes. Resentment strains to find release, but I don’t move, don’t speak. Instead I stare at the moss covered roots that snake out in a writhing mass, following them with my eyes to where they tunnel their way back down into the sodden ground. They seem to be anchoring me as firmly as they do the tree beside me.

Standing so close to it now, I can smell the green of its leaves; can see each tiny crevice and deep gouge in the damp bark; can hear the creaking of its ancient bones in the wind. You and your camera are forgotten as I tentatively raise my hand and press it against its torso, a sad smile shivering through me at the touch of something so old yet so alive. The feeling that swells within me is foreign to me now, almost forgotten through years of neglect; but as I turn to you, I hear the shutter click and I know that you have captured it for me forever.

You don’t stop me when I walk past you and back to the car, and we don’t speak for the rest of the day – you only tell me where to drive. You take photographs of your past, and I watch you from afar and store the images in my mind. When you go to collect the photographs from the developer, I stay behind and pray that they’re ruined. It’s my first prayer in years, and I know that God will not answer it.

You don’t give me the photographs when you return. Instead I find them spread out on the scarred and beaten coffee table in the den. You know that I will find them there; you know I can’t resist. They catch my eye and draw me in, and I am lost again; seeing the world through your eyes; finding the hidden truths you reveal in each captured moment. And then I see me…

The scar slices from my temple to my mouth, curving like a scythe across the smoothness of my cheek. Instinctively, my fingers trace the cruel cut through my flesh as my eyes follow it across the glossy image in my hand. How could you do this to me? I want to scream. The sound of ripping paper sounds unnaturally loud in the room as I separate the bad part of my face from the good, crumpling it up angrily in my hand.

“I made doubles, you know.”

Your voice is soft and gentle, but your words tear through me like broken glass.

“What’s the matter with you?” I hiss with all the venom I can draw forth. “Did you not cut me deep enough the first time?”

I don’t care that your face has gone pale; don’t care about the pain in your eyes, or that the tears I so despise are filling the canyon across my face. Blindly I begin rummaging through the photographs before me, needing to find and destroy the cruel image of my face, the reminder of the twisted metal and glass that ruined me.

“Would you feel better about it if you had been driving, Sarah?”

My hands go still, my breath goes shallow; the sudden silence in the room is suffocating.

“Would you rather it was me who was scarred, Sarah? Would you rather be the one knowing that the person you love hates you?”

You’re standing beside me now, but I can’t look up; can’t bear to see the pain in your eyes that I can hear in your voice. You sink to your knees beside me, and take my frozen hands in yours.

“It was an accident, Sarah.”

“You were driving,” I whisper back.

I sense more than see you wince; feel your fingers close more tightly around mine; and for the first time I realize the absurdity of what I’m saying.

“Please, Sarah, it wasn’t my fault. I need you to forgive me. I need you to forgive me, so I can start to forgive myself.”

Your voice is broken, and something inside me fractures and splinters. When I look at you, I see you truthfully for the first time in years: see your guilt, your shame, your pain; see the burden I have placed on top of the one you already carry; see the love I’ve rejected so viciously for so long. How deep, I wonder, do your scars run?

The hand you raise is tentative and gentle, your touch tender as your fingertips trace the scar across my damp cheek. I want to tell you I forgive you, but the words are trapped with the tears in my throat.

“I took the photograph,” you say, “so you can see yourself through my eyes; so you can see how beautiful you are to me. When I look at you, all I see is you: the woman I married, the woman I love, the most beautiful woman I know.”

Your voice is as hushed as it was in the forest, as fragile as the silver spheres of rain that fell around you, yet it shatters what is left of the barriers around my heart. The softness I’ve resisted for so long seeps back in, and whatever my face shows slowly brings the light back into yours. Your hand against my scarred cheek is warm, and I close my hand over it, pressing it closer.

“I think you’re beautiful too,” I whisper, and your eyes widen in surprise.

You look again like a child, your face alight with wonder, your body vibrating with an emotion I long to explore. I want to pick up your camera and capture this moment forever, but instead I store it in my heart, replacing all the bitterness and anger with something infinitely more precious.

“Perhaps we can go back to your tree today,” I continue carefully, willing my courage not to fail me. “I can take your photograph this time…and you can drive.”
 

Copyright (c) 2009 by Y. Roelofse - do not reproduce
without the author's written permission!

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