[stylist] The heart of it: chapter 1.

[Robert Newman]

Alan

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your  story.




Robert Leslie Newman 
Email- newmanrl at cox.net
THOUGHT PROVOKER Website- 
Http://www.thoughtprovoker.info

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Alan
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 9:21 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] The heart of it: chapter 1.

Hi everyone,
This is the first chapter in the story  I was seeking so much advice about.
Let me know what you think of it as a start.

Alan

The heart of it

By: Alan Wheeler

 

chapter one

Heart Break

 

 

 

BUMP!!

Michael looked up from his section of the Sunday paper as he and Anna sat in
the front of the first class section of the airplane. The jolt of turbulence
brought Michael back to his distracted thoughts. He and Anna  weren't
moving, no real "turbulence" for them,  they were stagnating, standing
still, and it was driving him mad.

 

Oh, they loved each other, that wasn't the problem.  It was communicating;
communicating their love for each other to each other, communicating without
putting the other on the defensive all the time.  Those were the problem
areas for them and they both knew it.  Yet, neither Michael or Anna took
steps to remedy the problem.  It had become like that proverbial elephant in
the living room that no one speaks of, but rather walks a wide circle
around, simply to avoid it.

 

Michael had hoped their trip to South America would nudge them out of this
routine, cause them to break down barriers, but it didn't happen that way.
No change occurred at all, in fact.

 

He looked over at her as she read her Stephen King novel, and his heart
seemed to stutter in his chest, as beating every other beat.  He loved her
so much, and yet felt so far away.  It hurt him; hurt him deep.  He caught
her looking at him out of the corner of her eye, and the look on her face
told him in no uncertain terms she was thinking about the very same things.
He saw the love in her eyes, but he also saw a seemingly bottomless sadness
and loneliness there, too.

 

He wanted to throw down his newspaper, tell her just how deeply he loved her
and demand she say what she was thinking.  It was futile, though.  It was
futile because Michael knew that he would balk if she made the same demand
of him.  He had tried to open up, tried to get past the barriers he felt
between them, but it was like body-slamming a brick wall.  All he could
bring himself to do was brush a lock of her long, black hair out of her
face.  It was a gesture of affection, to him, anyway, but she just vaguely
glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and continued to read.

 

 

***

 

 

Anna felt Michael's hand brush the loose lock of hair.  She really did love
him.  He was like no man she had ever known, let alone loved.  Yet, for her
it seemed like her head was extroverted and her heart introverted. She could
talk with him about their work in South America, the impact that work would
have back in the states, and do so for hours.

 

On the other hand, though, ask her to express her love for him, and it as if
she were pathologically shy, or mute or something like that.

 

Ask her to talk about some way, big or small in which Michael may have hurt
her, even just with a unintended sleight, and her emotional throat closed up
and her voice was, in a manner of speaking, gone.

 

She hated herself for it but she kept waiting on Michael to be the one to
open up. She knew she should take the first step since it seemed Michael
never would.  Unfortunately, she seemed too mired in it all to take that
step.  She recalled how she once thought being a better housewife would tilt
the balance, and cause them to open up to each other.  But, it was like the
lyric she had heard in a song by the band Wilco says, "keeping things clean
doesn't change anything."

  

They both sat, mutely gazing at each other, suddenly and for no apparent
reason, and silently knew something had to break, and both wondered if it
ever would.

 

***

 

Suddenly, for Michael, something did.  It had nothing whatsoever to do with
their relationship.  It was pain, starting from the left side of his chest
and slowly radiating down his arm.  For the love of everything holy, was he
having a heart attack?  Here?  On this airplane?  He squeezed Anna's hand,
almost violently.  His eyes registered her shock and horror as she realized
something was wrong, then everything faded to black, just like a TV show or
movie.

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