I’ve been a bit erratic with my studies this week. I have been worried about Artie having to go for a routine castration. Thankfully he is now home safe and recovering from the anaesthetic.
This week’s writing task was to write about a stereotype character and change the role. I found it really difficult to achieve and what I have written really shows no sign of stereotyping but I’ve tried and it is all I can achieve this week. I am very tired.
As always feedback is extremely valued. Thank you!
The wind slapped at his hairless head like an insult. He closed his eyes to the driving rain that threatened to blind him, while his fingers strained to keep their hold of the cold, bare rock. He was hanging hundreds of meters from the relative safeness of the ground, and close by someone was shouting. ‘Geoff, get a move on! You’re holding the rest of us up!’
‘I can’t!’ he shivered.
‘Just think why you’re doing this!’ And then he did. Of Hannah. Little sick Hannah lying in a hospital bed attached to multiple drips, with her grandmother sitting beside her reading fairy stories to chase away the fears. Since his wife had died it had just been him and Hannah. And now Hannah had become sick with the same rare genetic condition as her mother. Geoff was clinging to the side of a precipice as if his life depended on it, and in some way it did, maybe not his life but others. If he was successful in his conquering of Ben Nevis, Geoff would raise in sponsorship almost £100,000! His friends and family had been generous to a fault, but it was the donations from the public after he had featured in the local press that boosted his funds to astronomical proportions. Geoff remembered standing rosy faced before a TV camera and being humbled by the generosity of anonymous people. However on this ‘dreich’ autumnal day Geoff’s resolve faltered. It fell away from him like the lose rock that has fallen headlong down the slope as he tried to hoist himself up.
As his foot had slipped, it seemed to Geoff that his life flashed before his eyes. He recalled the look of his mother when his father left them. Of playing kiss chase in the school playground, and only chasing the girls with fair hair. He preferred blondes, so much so that years later his wife too had been a blonde. Geoff had met her at a friend’s 18th birthday party. Geoff wasn’t 18 until the coming January while Belinda was still only 16! He remembered they had ‘hit it off’ straight away. They were ‘soul mates’, Geoff always thought. After that night when they shared their first kiss under the stars, they were inseparable.
Geoff married Belinda when she was 21. It was a small registry office affair, but he remembered Belinda dressed in white, looking the picture of beauty. A year later and the perfectly formed Hannah with her big brown eyes, (inherited from Geoff) and blonde curly hair (like her mother) arrived.
He didn’t like what came next in his mind’s eye. Of Belinda falling sick. Of the long days and nights in hospital, and ultimately standing before an open grave with the priest prattling on about ‘the shadow of death.’ Flowers, that was his lasting memory of Belinda’s funeral. Lots of flowers. Large gaping lilies and pale, lacklustre roses. That was not how he remembered her. Belinda was vibrant and fiery like blooms of Birds of Paradise!
Some two years after Belinda’s death, Hannah started showing signs of becoming sick. This was the reason why Geoff was clung to a rock like a mollusc. He had agreed to climb the mountain to raise much needed funds for research. Somehow, his own discomfort sweetened the pain of what was ultimately to follow. ‘Come on Geoff!’ someone called. With teeth clenched he loosened his grip and raised his hand to the next crevice. He would achieve this for Hannah’s sake!
Christine Lucas 