The exercise:
Our topic for today shall be: the lost letter.
As of this morning it has been seven years since I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Which meant a trip to Tim Hortons with my family in order to celebrate Diabetes Donut Day. I went with a blueberry fritter this time around and I do not regret it.
The addition of Max to the festivities has left me especially grateful to these guys this year.
Mine:
Its message fading,
It sits waiting
Upon the ground,
Hoping to be found.
Left behind,
For years unkind,
The light of day
A world away.
Nearing rotten,
Surely forgotten
I thought,
But it is not.
6 comments:
Oddly enough, I was thinking yesterday that it must be nearly your Diabetes anniversary, and here it is! I rather suspect that my brain is just good at ticking off years rather than actually remembering the date though. I was also making Millionaire's shortbread at the time, which is (at least the way I make it) a diabetes-inducing treat.
The ending to your poem is slightly unnerving, though I can't put my finger on why. Maybe because there's no hint to the letter's contents, or why it's waiting :)
The lost letter
"What letter comes after D, Alice?" asked Mrs. Smiff. Her daughter, a little angel with blonde hair and a blue dress with a huge bow at the back that made her look like a butterfly, looked adoringly up at her mother.
"F, mummy," she said in a tone like the chiming of a silver bell.
Mrs. Smiff's face darkened and Miss Snippet, who had lost the letter E from the alphabet chart years ago, stepped quietly out of sight. It didn't help that she knew Alice was a screaming little monster who wet herself when she was angry, sad, hot, cold, hungry, full-up or breathing. In her peripatetic opinion she deserved an alphabet with only twenty-five letters and four vowels. But parents could be so tedious about these things.
"How about the letter than comes after S?" asked Mrs. Smiff, her tone heavy with anger.
"U, mummy," said Alice, and Miss Snippet realised that she really ought to check the alphabet chart more often.
i had typos so i have resubmitted here...
the lost letter
They were all stuck to the fridge door via little magnetic discs underneath. They looked like a bunch of colourful Scrabble tiles, except they were funky cut-out wooden letters of the alphabet, each with googly eyes that looked at you accusingly should you get the spelling wrong. There were extra vowels and a few extra consonants but mostly there were only enough letters for the short words that under-fives could cope with, anyway.
We began our informal lesson. The 21 month-old sat beside me and picked up his first letter. It was S for his name. We found all the letters and arranged them correctly. He knew when all four were present, too, as he can already read his name. Next came D for Dad, M for Mum and C for cat.
We got onto more serious spelling when he wanted to go through all his pets' names. When there are dogs, cats, guinea pigs, ducklings and 32 chickens, well, that takes both time and letters, and we didn't have enough, so I shortlisted them to generic brands like "dog", "duck" and "chook", which kind of satisfied him.
Then he asked to spell Zebra, one of favourite wild animals. Easy, I thought, no repetitions in Zebra.
I found the E, the B, the R and the A, but I hunted and hunted for the Z, looking under the fridge and prodding with a ruler in case it had slid under there. I had him searching, too, laughing as I watched him take on his classic Sherlock Holmes stance as he walked about the room, looking.
Alas, we couldn't find the lost letter Z. We struck a compromise. I wrote it on some paper, cut it out and stuck it on the fridge.
"What's that word?" I asked, pointing to my ingenious looking Zebra.
"Zebwa," he answered proudly.
Pronunciation would come later, I thought, with a huge smile on my face.
Written and sent, never received
A declaration of his love,
Unacknowledged,
Changed the course of his life.
Greg - hah, glad you went that route with your take on the prompt, as I was tempted to do something similar. Just couldn't decided on what... though the idea of a missing person (letter) report was intriguing to me.
Writebite - no worries, the first post has been disappeared :)
Sweet little tale that brought a smile to my face and warm fuzzies to my heart.
Morganna - feels like the prelude to a rather interesting, possibly tragic, tale.
I did this a few nights ago on paper, but I figured I'd share anyway.
- - - - - - - - -
He didn't leave much. It was his way, really, not to leave much: what little money he had, the couple of pieces of family furniture--kept only because they were in the family--and the funny-looking mechanical hourglass he had always loved, all of which he'd left to me.
But when I asked the lawyer about the letters, she shrugged and said there were no mention of letters.
He had gone off to boarding school when I was small--ten year difference between us--but shortly after I got my first letter from him. I myself could barely write at the time, so our mother played scribe until I could write myself. I rarely saw him--and even the short and few times he came home he spoke very little--but we essentially grew up in letters. And despite his mobile life after school his letters were always punctual; and whenever he moved I'd report how long the turnaround had been, and he'd adjust accordingly to move the arrival day to its "usual" day.
I kept every single one of those letters, numbering well over a thousand. And I always figured he had kept at least some of mine, so the lawyer's answered surprised me. But, she added, remembering something, he did leave a key to a safety deposit box. Maybe something was in there?
Maybe, but I'd search that out later, I figured. But that figure got dented: I got back to the house and spotted my bedroom window upstairs broken. Nothing of monetary value was taken, but two boxes in the back of my closet--the two boxes of letters when he'd first hit the road--were gone.
g2 - I am very glad you did decide to share. This is fascinating. Love the setup here - it's just begging to be continued!
Or is that just me begging?
Either way. Quality stuff :D
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