Changing Moccasins — Point of View (A WP exercise post)

[Yogesh]

The scene: A man and a woman walk through the park together, holding hands. They pass an old woman sitting on a bench. The old woman is knitting a small, red sweater. The man begins to cry.



 

The Old Woman: 

Oh Dear, this is the third person who started sobbing while passing me. The other two had suffered unfortunate loss of their beloved children & mother. God, please let it not be the case with this lovely couple. Or is it worse than that? Has this man also lost someone, too? Perhaps the woman is someone who is kind enough to have extended support to this man in sharing his grief!

I can’t even tell them that my children are too far and that I am not sure if I may ever see them before this disease kills me. The thoughts are drifting into my mind again and again. I should complete this sweater as my grand-daughter shall need it in the winters that would arrive in next month. I need to consider the time involved in the transit, too!



 

The woman:

God! I am grateful to you having blessed me with such a kindhearted husband. Why is that you are taking so long to fulfill our only wish in life? We did not complain because we also understand that there will always be some or the other inadequacy in everyone’s life.

But already he is upset with the complications being faced in our effort of adopting a child, as we finally considered it to be the best option to make the lives of three of us happier; and here we stumble upon this aunt weaving baby sweater while we are trying to find peace of mind!

Well, I have to cheer my sweetheart up! I shall also knit such sweater for our 'would be' daughter; perhaps a baby pink one!



 

The man:

Whenever I think about the sorrow in my life, I look at this old woman who happens to be my patient. I call her Aunty.

Her sufferings seem to never end. She lost her son and daughter in law five years back. They were coming to see her while their plane crashed. Earlier, her son had told her that she was going to become granny soon!

I have got such a wonderful and understanding wife. She has been my strength while I have become quite edgy nowadays.

I must learn to control my emotions like Uncle. He has faced all these events with great courage and is now living only to look after Aunty. She was caught with Alzheimer’s two years back when both of them visited my clinic for the first time.

Sometimes, like now, I feel, the disease has been a blessing in disguise for her. At least she is happy knitting this baby sweater…

[Kamiko]

This is really good...I love the emotions portrayed in it.

[Yogesh]

Appreciate your feedback!

[Ben]

Interesting story, love the plot twist. However there were a lot of things going on at once that I kind of got lost in it. Plane crash, alzheimers, an unknown uncle, a sweater, death of son and daughter in-law, sweater, is this really an aunt?

Maybe you wanted it to be that way which would be good! But I had to read and re-read for a while to get the whole gist of the story.

[Yogesh]

I'm glad you found the story interesting, Ben! I believe writing is about continuous exploration. I tried here to leave certain elements to the readers' imagination. Though I agree this could have been elaborated further.

I found an article very valuable in this regard that mentioned about Lisa Moore saying,

“The strongest fiction, for me as a reader, is that which allows me to create it in my head and, as a writer, I like to give the reader as much control as possible—I think that’s where the real pleasure lies.”.

She has also said beautifully,

"Stories never belong to the author who happens to write them down, they are also the creation of each individual reader. I sometimes imagine stories and novels are like the transparent film of soap that coats a child's bubble wand - and the breath that blows it into a bubble, is the breath of the reader. The reader's imagination gives a story shape and substance. It is a private and secret bubble of experience belonging solely to the reader, lasting for as long as the reading of the book last, ending with the turn of the final page, when the bubble bursts, and the 'real' world becomes solid again.".

Thank you so much for stopping by. Appreciate your views.

[Deanna]

Very stream of conscious, almost dreamlike. I too had to re-read a few times in order to understand the connections. I think you could tweak this into some lovely poetry!

[Yogesh]

Thanks for sharing Deanna! I'll try the poetry idea...