Home | Contest | Write A Book | Write Ebooks For Cash | Be A Travel Writer | Write Children's Books Write For Newspapers | Write An Ezine | Write A Blog | Writing Skills & Tips | Novel Writing Software Please take a moment to bookmark this site and join our free hot tips list. Read & Rate Our Writing Contest Entries! See what other people have written, and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an opportunity to view a wide variety of short stories and see what kind of original material is being submitted to us on a daily basis. After you rate an entry, you will be randomly redirected to another entry to rate. You may read and rate as many entries as you wish! The user-rating system is simply a fun way for writers to receive a public opinion of their work, and does not affect the judging for the cash prizes. If you wish to enter the contest, you may enter for free here. Rate This Contest Entry: Contest: June 30th, 2005 Author: Catharine Foster Q. How do you make God laugh?
It was his little shoes that finally did it. They’re sitting there, like always, right by the front door. I must have forgotten to pack them. They look so tiny beside mine--you could tuck them gently into the toes of my shoes, and they would forever be safe. I could tie the laces up tightly and keep them snuggled happily inside. The compulsion to do just that was strong. Incredibly, awfully, horrifyingly strong. Because, after all….. They’re all I have left of him. It was only yesterday that he was in those shoes: his toes peeked out from under those straps, his little ankle rested just above that buckle. Tanned legs extended forever, pebbled with the ever-present bruises of the four year old, caked with dirt and never quite catching the heaven-kissed reaches of his hair. He was like all children his age. He is not all children his age. He’s mine. He was mine. WAS mine. His father and I don’t talk any more. We look at each other and see all of the arguments that don’t matter, all of our petty differences. I want him to comfort me, but he doesn’t come near. I throw up in the bathroom, as quietly as possible so I don’t disturb him when he has to go to work in the morning, throw up until I’m gagging and nothing more comes out. I sob on the bathroom floor when there are no tears left for crying. I’m sorry for every time I screamed at him, every time I told him to pick up his toys. He can eat hot fudge sundaes for breakfast and never pick up his toys again--please God send him back. Please, whatever I did, I won’t do it anymore, God. Please, God. Please, God. There is never a sound from the darkened bedroom, not even snoring. I know he is awake, but my husband doesn’t answer. For that matter, neither does God. He just sits in front of the T.V. most of the time; sometimes it’s even on. It doesn’t matter if it’s on. He wouldn’t see it. My mother said it was my fault. I did this, I didn’t do that. We should live in the country, kids need more grass to run around on. I didn’t love him enough. I loved him too much. Some how, some WAY, it had to be my fault. He was wearing blue shorts, the last time he wore those shoes. Blue shorts and brown shoes--oh, well. I grinned as he was jumping out the door, taking a flying leap off of the porch and into the backyard, the shorts billowing out like butterfly wings and lighting back on his thighs when he landed. I don’t know how the shoes stayed on--I remember those ones were always falling off. I’d tell him to stop dragging his feet. If he’d stop dragging his feet, they wouldn’t fall off. I don’t want him to stop dragging his feet anymore. He can drag his feet, do anything. Just . . . Anything but the shoes. The shoes without him in them. Forcing me to remember . . . It could have been anyone. Anyone’s kid. Sometimes I wish it were. Sometimes, (those rare times when I have to go out because I have to do laundry or buy groceries) sometimes I see a kid, some other kid, someone else’s kid and think (and believe me, I hate myself for thinking it), why wasn’t it him? Why not that kid? Or her? Why him? They have all done stupid things. How come some grow up, grow old, grow long enough to look back on it and laugh about it, and some….. There is no reason. On that day--the day of the porch, the last day of right and sunshine, the last day he wore that stupid t-shirt he never took off, that stupid, wonderful, dirty t-shirt with the mouse on the front he barely ever took off long enough to let me wash it--on that day I should have known what would happen. He glided off the porch and the light in his hair, the smile on his face, everything should have told me that God’s hand was on him, this time God’s hand was on him and it wasn’t going to let him go. His feet dangled in the air a second longer than they should have; the shoes didn’t come off. Even though they didn’t come off, I told him he couldn’t wear them. I didn’t want him to drag his feet: that morning, I told him he couldn’t wear them because they would slow him down. He was only four years old. He said he had to wear them because they were his lucky shoes. The day of the porch was only the day before, and he still remembered. When he landed without losing them, without hurting himself, without even a skinned knee I told him he was lucky he didn’t get hurt, jumping from the top of the stairs like that. I smiled and put a hand on his dirty blonde head, those water blue eyes pouring out to me. He looked worried, more about me than about himself. After all, he was fine. He had landed. He couldn’t understand why I was so upset. With my hand in his hair, I smiled at him and said, nodding toward his feet: “Those must be your lucky shoes.” It was the next day. His toy car rolled all the way down the drive and out into the road, and just that once he forgot that I had told him a million times not to go after it, just that once he wasn’t wearing the shoes that infallibly fell off when he ran; the shoes that would have fallen off just in time to save him. His lucky shoes. The last time I ran my fingers through his hair, my hand had blood in it. There was the sound of tires and brakes and screaming, grinding, metal, someone screaming over and over “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I’m sorry”. Me? I can’t remember. I told him . . . I told him everything will always be Ok with us as long as God is in his heaven and he would be OK because I love him and daddy loves him and nana loves him and goddamn it the doctor is wrong, everybody loves him he can’t die. Breathe, damn you! Breathe! Please, Jordy. Please don’t die. My husband, my mother, they won’t speak to me anymore. God doesn’t speak to me anymore. I don’t know if God still loves me--he loved Jordy. Jordy was his angel--IS his angel, now, once and for all. I’m so sorry. The shoes I should have let him wear are still standing there, right where he left them, standing there without him, perversely, as if he were still in them. His lucky shoes. He’d come back for them, if he could come back. He’d want his lucky shoes. I’ll pack them up. My hands are shaking as I reach out to them, grow limp when my fingers touch all of the faith in them, all of the magic I believe--HE believed they had. I’ll pack them up, though. Not yet. people have rated it so far. is the current average. |
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