Listen
The relentless beep beep beep of the monitor had taunted Tom for hours now; it was more than he could bear. He buried his face in his hands attempting to hide from the truth, but the cold blue light from the screens found him like a searchlight in the dark room.
How did we end up here?
He wanted to shake her – hard – and shout in her face until she heard him and shouted back, though he knew from experience it would do no good. She never heard him.
He pressed his hands over his ears against the now steady sound of the monitor alarm as she slipped into the silent, dreamless sleep of those who will not return, certain he would hear her voice in his dreams forever.
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Join us at Ivy Walker‘s blog for Six Sentences Stories.
Each week writers are challenged to spin a tale in six sentences – no more, no less. This week’s cue is SHAKE.
Click on the link right here to read some great stories and poems and share your own!
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Lisa A. Listwa is a self-employed writer with experience in education, publishing, and the martial arts. Believing there was more to life than punching someone else’s time clock and inspired by the words of Henry David Thoreau, she traded her life as a high school educator for a life as a writer and hasn’t looked back. She is mother to one glorious handful of a daughter, wife to the nicest guy on the planet, and reluctant but devoted owner of three Rotten Cats. You can find her adventures and thoughts on living life deliberately here on the blog.
26 Comments
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Wow good one Lisa!
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Hey, you! Thanks. 🙂
Very moving. We’re all headed there someday as the watcher or the other…good job
Thanks, Paul.
Powerful and haunting! Beautifully written about the inner struggles of one of life’s harshest moments. I posted but the link won’t work for me. Having troubles with WP perhaps that’s the cause. Thank you for inviting others to join in. Appreciate and enjoyed.
Thank you. Glad you wrote something – hope you get your WP issues fixed so you can share your link!
The anguish and despair of this moment is felt so deeply through your words. Very, very well done, Lisa!
Thank you. Yes, he’s pretty anguished.
Oh my. I’d love to know the backstory. It is horrible to be in a sterile hospital room listening to those beeps and buzzers and then the shrill one that signifies death. A memory impossible to erase from your mind. I know.
Val is right, the back story please!
LOL – see my reply to Val!
It is indeed, Val. <3
Backstory...well, I had something very particular in mind, but I definitely don't think it came through. I've revisited this story already and think I'd have done some things differently to make that come through. So...a learning experience about how fear holds back the creative process, I guess.
I re-read this. He killed her by shaking her and now is left with the beeps, the regret and the anger.
I love that you read it again. 🙂
Very haunting.
These moments in life certainly can be, Mimi.
Lisa, I could almost feel the deep despondency in him in your last sentence. Beautiful 6 sentences. I wonder what she had been suffering from.
Best wishes,
Moon
https://aslifehappens60.wordpress.com
Thank you, Moon. I’d say she’s suffering from the hardships in life.
I am sorry ,Lisa. I am only at the beginner’s level both in writing and comprehension 😞. Read Val’s comment and can now connect it better.
Moon, no sorry! Everyone brings and takes away something different to everything they read.
surely we all know that place/feeling, no matter how quickly passing, it is a state of being as much as a feeling.
‘cellent Six.
Thanks, Clark. At some point, we’ll all be in that room on one side or the other, leaving or staying.
Heartbreaking. Or so I’ve heard. Not sure if I have a heart, or if it could break.
Thank you. And HI!
As to the state of your heart…not for me to say, but I believe we all have one somewhere.
One can never hide from life’s realities.
Very true. Very true.