Delores Wingham Fitch

Delores has a problem. She's run out of milk and must now go to the store and buy more. Sadly, the is a slight dilemma for Ms. Fitch. She's not left her house in five years.

Delores Wingham Fitch

By Danielle Baker

(Gbannersauce)

 

            Dressed in my, now, tight fitted blue rain coat and gray polka-dotted swampers, I, Delores Wingham Fitch, age 42, am going to finally step outside to buy some milk. I’d have done my usual routine and just call in a delivery from the market, but the clerk that ran the telephone was out sick today and making cereal without the proper amount of milk added to it is like having a Chihuahua as a guard dog against wolves, unusual and unjustified. I know what you might be thinking right about now. “Why am I listening to a woman talk about going out to buy milk?” Well, to you it could be just an everyday chore, but to me, this is like a monumental achievement. Something like finishing the pyramid of Giza couldn’t rival how accomplished I’d feel if I were to actually step outside. I’ve not been outside in 5 years…so this means everything to me.

            I’m a widow, you see; my husband died from a germ he’d caught near the Rockies while he was hiking with some old friends. I didn’t know who they were, I just new they were old friends.  I’d loved my husband from the very deepest parts of my soul, and when the hospital told me he’d passed, not only 3 days after he’d returned from his trip, well, I almost passed myself from the grief that befell me not long after. My life felt as if it’d taken a complete halt and the world seemed to have stopped spinning, just for me.  Days blurred with nights, spring suddenly felt like a harsh winter, and I couldn’t bring myself to get back to my life. The only thing I was able to find solace in was reading.

So when my pink slip came in the mail from my job at the clinic, I was much more than eager to buy a recording system from online and start reading novels to make audio books. This way, I could record from home, and send a copy of the recording straight from my house to the audio company. I didn’t have to leave the safety of my depression or have to deal with the troubles of the outside world. I thought it was perfect; that it was going to be a good way to live life for someone like me. However, I didn’t really think that. I knew that one day I would have to go outside for something at one time or another. I just couldn’t bring myself to say or do what I was thinking, and instead I kept it hidden. I kept in hidden completely, until now.

            So now as I look through the window of my door, something I hadn’t done in a year or so, I bring the morale of my mind to a startling level and urge my hand to motion enough to grab a hold of the door knob, something I haven’t touched by hand, without a duster, in five whole years.

            Breathing in, taking in every piece of air that I could grab, I hastily grabbed a hold of the knob, exhaling loudly as the action occurred. I stared, bewildered at what I’d just done. It made me think of those drug commercials that always say, “The first step to recovery is taking the first step to get help.” I’d just taken my first step, and now that I’ve taken it, I should be able to take the next steps easy right? I mean, you always see those drug commercials and five minutes later you see another one of how some person has a better life because they took the first step. This should be no different right? “I can do this with no trouble then!” I yelled as I suddenly turned the knob hard to the left and tried pushing the door open, only to be met with an aching pain from running into the door which didn’t move from being pushed. I moved my hand from the doorknob to my now aching head. It’s been awhile since I’ve used that door now, you see, and, now that I think about it, my door has always been a “pull door,” not a “push door”. I let a sigh out about the stupidity. Then I looked back at the door, still rubbing the pain from my forehead.

            I grabbed the doorknob once more, this time with less tenseness, and turned it, again, to the left. I pulled and the door opened. I felt a gust of cold air push through the crack in the door and it brushed past my rain coat and made my short light blonde hair sway abit. I couldn’t quite explain the feeling to anyone if they ever asked, but it was exhilarating, if anything else. I think I’d forgotten what fresh air smelled or felt like and it dawn on me after all of these years why I’d stopped going outside.

The smell from the April rain mixed with the pollution on the street and sidewalk made a sort of foul and bad egg smell. It was cold even though I had my biggest jacket on and once I opened the door fully I was met with a burst of cold rain that began to slap my face. I felt like I was being insulted by Mrs. Mother Nature; almost like revenge that she wanted to serve me cold and also wet. My brooding face told my emotion clearly. I looked like a child who didn’t want to go on a ride and was made to anyway. Then I started to think. How is this worth something so trivial like milk? I don’t like the outside enough just to have a satisfactory breakfast. It’s as old revolutionaries used to say, “For the good of others, sacrifices must be made.”

“This is the exact same concept, and since I, being the lover of old history that I am, should follow the wisdom of my elders.” I said, abruptly closing and turning from the door.

I walked through the front room and back to the kitchen where I’d left my dry cereal sitting on the table. I picked up the bowl and emptied the cereal in the trash can next to the table. “I sacrifice this cereal, for the good of me not having to leave this house!” I yelled with accomplishment. I could go without cereal for one day and call in for some milk tomorrow. I wouldn’t be going outside for one more second today! I placed the bowl in the sink, grabbed a quick banana, and went from the kitchen to my recording studio. I ate the banana quickly and threw the peel away, turning the systems on and reaching for the newest read I was to be recording, I opened it and began to read over the pages I was completing today, with not a hint of bad feeling in my mind.

 

Reviews

[Ripple of Aqua]

"...and urge my hand to motion enough to grab a hold of the door knob, something I haven’t touched by hand, without a duster, in five whole years.
Breathing in, taking in every piece of air that I could grab, I hastily grabbed a hold of the knob, exhaling loudly as the action occurred."
You repeated the same process, I believe, and it took me a moment of rereading it to understand that she hadn't had her hand on it, just the want to pull it open. Maybe that was worded wrong and I'm just over analyzing, but that didn't seem written correctly.
I thought that this was a pretty good read, the structure was good, and the pace was great, but there was no "UMPH!" Though I could clearly pretend to see a woman glare at a doorknob and try to reach for it, I couldn't see the house, I couldn't see how she looked, unless you count the hair part, and there was a little too less of detail for me to watch. It seemed incomplete.
But the story itself was thought through and clever. I wish I could write comedies so easily. Keep writing, I'd love to see more of your flare!

[Brittany]

Hahahahaha. This was funny, but also very very sad. Great job with the description and inner dialogue.