First Line Fail

So I was SOOO excited about doing the short story challenge. I started out almost immediately after I wrote my last blog and wrote 1000 words without even batting an eye...or considering an ending. Then I slowed down. I was having a hard time figuring out how to take my idea and trim it down. I have never even attempted to write a short story before.
Then my life changed, dramatically. Michael came about a month and a half ago to live with me full time. He is with us all through the week and then I usually pick him back up after church Sunday morning. Obviously my free time...well it no longer exists! lol! (not that I am complaining...It is totally worth it to be with him more!).
I still really wanted to complete this story though, so I sat down one afternoon and wrote about 1000 more words.
Then the deadline passed....
I missed it. My story still has no ending. It is still much to big and I still have no real idea how I was planning on tying it up for the ending. Blah. I feel bad for missing it as it was a PERSONAL goal I set for myself, but on the other hand life has been insane.
So anyway...here is my still unfinished (and unedited...I think it is probably not very good) short story attempt/fail:

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It had been a long year. The resistance was still strong in numbers, but it was weakening in resolve. The people were starting to doubt. Starting to question reality. Starting to remember the past and forget why we were here. Why we resisted. Why we continued to stay away. I could hear them talking, in the lunch line, at the rec center. , during work detail,


“why can’t we just go home?”

“I wonder what is going on back there”

“Do you think my sister is still alive?”

“It can’t hurt to just try to contact someone”

So many questions, only one answer. No. They could never go back. There was no one and nothing left for them. They could never stop hiding and they could never reveal themselves. How could I make them remember? After all this time, how could they forget? I would never be able to forget. Never be able to feel safe. How I longed for their weak resolve. How I hated to rob them of it.

Once we had been part of a huge and powerful nation, a nation of great plenty and great influence. We had everything we could possibly need, and much that most would never dream to want. We ate four meals a day instead of three. We had man servants and carriage drivers and we never dreamed of doing anything for ourselves. We were wasteful. We were greedy and oblivious. I was the worst of us all. I was the daughter of the kingdom, the darling of our world. And then everything changed. In one night my reality was altered forever and my people became those whom I had never bothered to consider. I became part of the despondent, the unfortunate, and the untoward. I had brought all these people with me, and we had become that which we had never even realized existed.

I was putting my hair up that night. Or rather Willam was putting it up for me. He was my favorite man-servant. Favorite not in the sense of actually holding any favor with me and certainly not in the sense of receiving any favors from me, but favorite because I made him do more work than any of my other man-servants. I did not know why exactly. I just preferred him. Looking back I think he made me more comfortable than any of the others. He did not seem as dirty or desperate as most of them did. He was, despite his pathetic statue in life, a good looking man and seemed sure of everything he did. I would ask ridiculous things of him, of course, to try to push him too far. We all played those games with our menservants back then. I remember once demanding that he hold his breath while I went to the bathroom. There was, of course, no real reason for him to do it. It did not benefit me in any way. But it was my right, or so I assumed then, to ask it of him. It made me more popular, ever the darling. I had to protect my own status of course and it was his duty to perform to that end. He did so without complaint. Without a sound. I remember though as I came back to the party and all of my ‘friends’ and companions were laughing and pointing at him, assuring me he had in fact held his breath, I remember his eyes when I finally gave him permission to breathe again. I saw in them a sadness and a look of disappointment. It was not as though this game was any worse than any other I had played. It was not as if he were surprised by my actions. But always deep underneath his willingness and his commitment to me, there was what almost seemed to be regret. Now I think Willam believed I would remember and would change things. I am ashamed now that I was not able to do so. I miss Willam. I think of him often and all that he did for me, all that I made him do and I am embarrassed. Embarrassed and sad. And also determined that no one should ever be treated that way again. Not as far as I could help it in any case.

That night as he put up my hair and helped me to dress in my latest party dress he did something peculiar. Something unheard of. As he tied the ribbon around my waist his fingers lingered there. I should have chastised him immediately. Had it been any other servant I would thrown a fit and had them thrown out of the house, or worse. But not Willam. As it was him I simply turned my body to face him. I wanted to see how far he would go with this. The man, who never backed down, never refused my challenges…what would happen now? As he stood, still holding onto my waist in a very intimate manner it occurred to me fleetingly that it seemed very familiar, the feel of him holding me. The way his hands fit around my slender waist and rested seemed at ease. I looked up into Willam’s eyes and gasped at his nearness and my response to it. I had intended to flirt with him, to tease him mercilessly but now in his arms I found I had no words. The words he spoke, however, will never leave me. They changed everything about me. “Happy Birthday Noelle”.

When I awoke it was the next morning. Willam was gone and for a moment I could not remember anything that had happened. I looked around my ridiculously large and ornate bed chamber and saw my party dress draped across the love seat. I looked down to find myself fully clothed in my favorite sleepwear. Everything seemed in order, and yet everything seemed completely wrong. I closed my eyes to try to get my bearings and was overwhelmed by a sense of dizziness. It was a swirl of memories I did not even recognize coming back to me. Memories of a different life, a different time, and a different me. Memories of people, some that I knew, like Willam, and some that I did not know and yet in these memories they were so dear to me. I was at once confused and enlightened. I suddenly remembered the night before. Remembered Willam’s soft words to me, and the dizziness and confusion it had caused. It had all come back so suddenly and so violently I had passed out. I remember waking briefly to find myself in Willam’s arms. He was stroking my hair and whispering softly to me of the memories I was already seeing in my mind. I passed out again. Willam undressed me, he put me to bed, promising all would be fine. Promising I would understand after a night of sleep. He promised to make excuses for me downstairs and to come back to me in the morning. Then he kissed me. I have been kissed before. As the sweetheart of the social world of course I had men after me all the time. But not like this, not with the tenderness and sincerity of this chaste and sweet kiss. I could taste in his lips that the memories I was having were real. I looked in his eyes and saw love and compassion and hope where I had seen disappointment and sadness before. He whispered for me to sleep and I closed my eyes to dream of all that I had forgotten.

As I opened my eyes in the here and now I saw our dismal surroundings. I understood why these people wanted so desperately to go back to a life that had seemed so perfect. Even knowing what we know and experiencing all that we have, it is hard to live in such a harsh actuality and not to daydream. But it is essential that we never let ourselves stay there. That is what got us in this mess in the first place. The government, or so they had called themselves back home, had fed on our daydreams and on our willingness to allow our minds to be molded. They had stolen the one thing that should never be taken, they had stolen our very existences. We did not even remember what it was they took from us. We did not even have the ability to be angry or to miss it.

There was a war, many years ago and the “government” had won. Life had been difficult before the war, and the leaders of my people, my true people, had decided they must protest. They felt they had to stand up for us and for our basic rights and for our future. I had been a young and silly girl back then. My parents did not have much in terms of money, but I had always managed to be popular in town anyway. I had many friends and many admirers. Willam was the most persistent. He, like my family, had almost nothing to call his own, but that never seemed to bother Willam. I tried to hide my poverty in my charming nature and popularity, but for him that never mattered. He was a hard worker and a good man. We were close, but never quite as close as Willam wanted us to be. To be honest I had to admit now that I wanted us to be closer as well. I cared for him deeply and was never happier than when spending time alone watching him hunt or make his carvings. Willam’s true talent was in wood carving. He made the most beautiful things. In our time, though, no one had the luxury of buying them. It was something that he and I fought about often. I thought he should go into the big cities and sell his marvelous creations to the rich and powerful. Oh how I wanted him to become part of that world. All that mattered in my mind was to become one of them. If Willam could take me there, so much the better. But Willam was not like me. He wanted nothing to do with the upper class. Even then I think he could sense there was something not right with them. He gave his wooden prizes away freely. Nearly everyone in village had at least one piece of furniture made by him and given without thought to payment. The people did try to pay him back by making sure he was fed, but he would not accept any more than that. He told me that every person deserved nice things, not only those who could afford them. I had replied that those who worked hard and therefore had money were the only ones who deserved anything. How little I understood back then. Willam was, I now know, my first and only true love. He tried so hard to make me see things, but I did not want to see them. I pushed him away time and time again despite my feelings and his sincerity. How I wish I had not.

Once the war came things became even more desperate. I began to see that the upper class I had wanted so desperately to join were not simply wealthy, but cruel as well. They had no regard for the things we were fighting for. No sympathy in the light of how much they had and how little we needed. They felt we were less than them and therefore they shut us out completely.