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In between watching a plethora of YouTube videos about how to improve one's writing and the feedback from my most cynical friends, I have determined my biggest weakness in writing is voice. Not that my writing voice lacks authority, but that my voice sounds like me. Writing is very much like acting, in that one must convey the essence of another for the duration of the written piece. As such, I decided to challenge myself to write 6 short stories over the next six week until the end of the semester writing in voices that do not align with my usual character voices. I also threw in a drawing component to this to improve my artistic side as well--and I will be drawing portraits of every voice.
The theme of this first week is "Cowboy".
A weeping girl is dangerous but a girl trying not to can be one of the most dangerous things, and it takes a brave man to ask what's wrong. So I sat on pretty Lil' Rosey's front porch with my arms around that pretty little frame, hushing her precious trembling. I'd have left by noon if not for her. But the southern dogs could wait for my girl to stop her quaking.
"I'm gonna be back before Christmas, Lil' Rosey, so don't you worry your pretty little head," I cooed, stroking her auburn hair.
"Sure thing, Winston," Lil' Rosey replied.
She wasn't crying, I would have scolded her for that. But she certainly weren't talking right neither. I took her hands and kissed them and gave her a little twirl--like them dances in the barn each spring. She smiled and it didn't quite reach her eyes. I pinched her cheek and tickled her 'til she laughed like sunshine after rain.
"Hey, you still love me?" she asked, her head tilted like a mocking bird perched on a fence.
"Of course I do," I promised her.
I took my hat and turned to go. She stood on her tippy toes in her little white shoes, and I knew there was another question hanging on her cherry lips. I didn't dare answer it, except with another kiss. "Winston Hawkes, you better come back, you hear?" I rode as she called after me. It'd have taken a braver man than I to look back. When the war ended, it was four years later and I was a changed man. My beard was thicker and my hands shook more, between the cholera and the bullet in my shoulder. I rode back to the patio where I'd left my girl those four years ago. The laundry hung out front, fluttering like doves in the wind. It smelled like chicken cooking inside and I knew then she'd make a good wife. I found her there, cradling a babe to her breasts. The sight was enough to still my trembling hands as I walked up those creaking wooden steps. It wasn't mine, of course, how could it be? Her eyes were wide and her cherry lips parted. Just the same as I had left them. 'Cept they'd kissed another man since I left. Lil' Rosey got to her feet as I rounded the top step.
"Winston Hawkes," she said simply. Her voice was older now, though I supposed so was mine.
"Rosey... Who's this?" I asked, taking my hat off proper. The babe had his mother's eyes. She rocked him and curled her hands around his. Timmy's eyes locked with mine, blind and grasping for meaning.
"That's Timmy. He's turning six months tomorrow," she replied. She glanced between him and I. My hands weren't shaking no more. "I thought... I thought you weren't coming back, so I..."
"Oh, I can see that," I snapped. I was being more curt than I wanted, stillness in my hands spilling over into my icy voice.
"You didn't write! You didn't even promise you were coming back! How were I supposed to know?" She craddled the babe closer to her.
"You should have waited. There wasn't a day I didn't pray to God that I'd see you again. I fought for this damned country knowing I'd come home to you."
"Well, can you blame me? Really, Winston? I prayed for you but I had to pray for me too. I needed a loving man in my life and--"
"And you had one."
"--And not one I had to wait to turn back up for me! I got sick of waiting and waiting and waiting for a man who didn't even think about me enough to write! You think I didn't wait? I waited for Christmas. I waited six months after that. I wrote them for you and I heard nothing back. You can't really expect... I can't... I don't even know what to say to you!"
I turned away from her. Looking away. Looking at the golden fields. Looking anywhere but at her. Her letters all carefully hidden in my breastpocket and my replies carefully hidden in my head. The babe was crying now and she was shushing it. My hands started trembling again something fierce.
"Look..." I said. My lips trembled. And I wanted to say more. But I couldn't.
There was nothing more to say. Four years of suffering. Her breath came sharp and fast as the day I left. The question she had never asked. I imagined then I knew. I knew what it was and it was "Will you marry me?" And I didn't ask it.
I could still ask it now. Now the question hung on my lips. But I couldn't do it to her and I couldn't do it to her babe.
I swallowed at last and found her standing there expectantly.
So I finished it and she turned inside.
I rode away then. A braver man would have asked for her back but I didn't deserve to.
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