Essays in...

Monday, May 4, 2009

The Mother (use hyphenated words given, free title)

It was a cold winter's night. On a dusty street,, there was a feet-dragging noise. As the woman passed a lighted house, she was illuminated clearly. She was not attractive - dressed in shabby-looking clothes, and had ill-fitting shoes. Although she looked barely forty, her hair was already streaked with strands of white. The hungry look on her face as she gazed into the windows of the warm houses, was soul-stirring.

A window was flung right open. "Wotcha staring at, woman? Git your filthy self away from us!" A mean-looking (and most obviously mean-minded) man growled at her through the window.

Taken by surprise, she stumbled and fell, with a back-breaking crash, onto the ground. Luckily for her, the snow was still thick and helped to cushion her fall. Blinking back the moisture that had appeared at the corners of her eyes, she scrambled to her feet and set off for home as fast as she could.

Turning a corner, she walked up a dark little street, and entered an even darker house. She was greeted by a cough and a groan. Her heart ached - but what could she do?

Lighting a candle, she went over to the boy lying on a bed. Even in the candlelight, she could see her own pain reflected in his beautiful face, except that the pain in his face was physical. "I'm sorry darling. All the oranges have been sold out," said she, fondling the boy's hot cheek.

The boy smiled up at her, but he was too sick to answer her. However, he shook his head to express that he did not mind, and looked into his mother's eyes. A soul-searching gaze passed between them. What they saw nearly broke their hearts, but in the end, she tore her eyes away from him.

Having precious little time to waste, she hurriedly went to a table, and continued embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown. This gown was not, and never, to be worn by her. It was for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. The seamstress glanced over at her son once more, and sighed. A passion-flower on the gown was slightly blood-stained the next morning, but she never knew that.

Long was the night, and cold was the snow. The woman's numb brain was distracted, all of a sudden, by a movement at the window. It was a swallow.

The bird flew into the open window. But the presence of a swallow in winter-time was not the only mind-boggling thing of the moment. For a heart-stopping moment, the woman stared at the eye-catching, blood-red ruby that shone and shimmered in the swallow's beak. The stone was twice as large as any ruby. The woman gasped, and passed out.

The swallow deposited the jewel gently on the table, next to the woman's head. Then it flew to the boy, and fanned his forehead gently with its wings. The boy was instantly cooled, and he fell into a delicious, dreamless slumber.

The bird left the house. The next morning, the seamstress woke up, and rejoiced to find the ruby on the table. She sold it, and with the money, she was able to buy medicine for her son. Moreover, she did not have to work as a seamstress anymore.

Joyful as they were, they never knew that, that night, somewhere in the city, a bird's heart stopped beating; a heart made of lead snapped. Years later, a writer penned the story down in a book, and entitled it "The Happy Prince".