#creativeessay

https://modernmama.com/the-5-short-stories-to-write-a-fiction-essay-your-teacher-has-never-seen-before/

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He’ll always be your father, my mother often says. Through oxygen lines, or exhaustion brought on by another infusion. It’s difficult to argue with someone whose body is perpetually a battleground for biology.   When he left her, left us, left the house and the dogs, the three mortgages under both their names, it was quiet. He had waited until it was just the hem and haw of my mother’s machine, supplying her with fresh air. The canary-colored walls of the house stood unusually cheerful, pockmarked with family portraits and my father’s military achievements. I was the only child that had not moved out yet, and I hurried out the electric blue front door. My boyfriend and I were headed to see the snow in Julian, falling softly on the mountains. To smile at the melting.  

Be safe, my mother said. And hem and haw.

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I don’t remember him much, anyway. When people bring up anecdotes of their fathers, of football games, camping trips, I recall much more macabre scenes. Almost sitcom in their absurdity. The first deep memory I can conjure was when he returned from Iraq, the first time. My mother was anxious, and we had rented a cheap motel in 29 Palms to collect him. I was glued to the television; the BTK serial killer had just been caught. And my father circled around the room in silence, handing out dollar gifts to us. And I wondered what made a murderer, and what made a hero.  

- When he retired from the military, my father had decided that we were going to live in our first real, non-doublewide home. In a suburb. With canary yellow walls, and an electric blue front door. He hadn’t been able to pin down a career because he was in the infantry in the military – meaning frontline, and no discernible skills that translate to civilian life. But that didn’t matter – my mother worked full-time for years and continued to work. At this point, she had collected a pacemaker, a “zipper” in the middle of her chest from a double-bypass, but had yet to be acquainted to the lullaby of the oxygen machine. Nothing tying her down, yet. No hem and haw. The only sound echoing in the living room was the constant sharp click of the loudly colored front door – the sound of leaving. The cost of a home we couldn’t afford.

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When my father was upset with my sisters and me, we often wouldn’t know till days later. I’d come home from school, turn on the computer and find an email from him. I’d ask my sisters, did dad send you an email too? They’d nod, and confirm that they too received a lengthy email, often ripping our characters to pieces. I’d close the browser, turn around towards the empty living room, the bright yellow walls, and ask a muted what the fuck? And they didn’t have an answer.  

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There’s something smothering about snow.

The way that sounds are enveloped in its cold, and stamped out. Julian was exceptionally cold the day he left. The clops of the carriage horses felt muffled, and the words of tourists seemed choked in the air. The way the town was holding its breath that day.  

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We had just begun to watch the world around us melt when I received the call from my mother. She was gasping for air. He – he – he – left –me, a shriek so loud the snow couldn’t swallow it. I asked what? Not to her, not to anyone in particular, because I already knew the answer. I pleaded with her to breathe, to hem and to haw. And then click. She had hung up. It would be an understatement to tell you that I thought I had lost my mother in that moment. I knew that if she wasn’t dead, she had died anyway.   The hour-or-so crawling down that mountain, back to that loud blue door, felt like days. My boyfriend drove back, knuckles taut-white on the wheel, to the tune of my sharp, stuttering breaths and elongated groans.  

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He had left a letter

And gone with a suffocating click of that fucking door, while my mother hem’d and haw’d the machine air upstairs.

But this is not about how they have been neatly kept even after having them for years. I am here to introspect whether I am giving them the love they deserve.

For so long, I thought I always have to keep them at their “best”. I do not even let anyone borrow my books unless I am sure they will handle it properly. Even I was always more than careful whenever I read. But then again, is this how they should live? Shouldn’t the stories be made colorful by notes, stains, any other “memory” the pages are bound to keep?

Old books always bring me fascination because of the history attached to them. How the white pages have turned brown over the years, how some even fell prey to decay. I love the smell, how some words are starting to fade.

From childhood, I learned the habit of buying second-hand books from book sales. Some of the books have names on them, scribbles, remnants from another life, or a lifetime, maybe. It was always a happy feeling to keep someone else’s memory through the books we share. As we already know, books may be inanimate but the stories are not.

Going back to my wonder, shouldn’t books be able to live their nine lives or more? Shouldn’t they be passed on to as many people as possible? Shouldn't they be read until ruined? Shouldn’t books be stripped down until they are left naked and vulnerable to truly know what they are trying to say? Or isn’t that a bit of an overkill?

As I read another book, I am sure these questions will often cross my mind. But even with so much curiosity, I do not think I can fill the pages with my words or marks. I cannot even promise to pass them on, not yet. Instead, I will commit to memory all the stories they tell. Hoping that one day, I will be telling the world stories of my own. And from there, the cycle goes on.

After all, there is no handbook. In reading, love is valid in all of its forms. Wild, silent, plain, and simple, name it. We should all read and love the way we think we should. “To each, their own.”