Throwing the Yellow Dodder-Snippet 11

You can read the last snippet here: Snippet 10.

...I know what is and it isn't livin' right, but life isn't always as cut and dry as some would have you believe it is..."


"You don't have to tell an old woman like me about how life ain't cut and dry. I don't think anything ever happens how we plan it out. I wonder why we ever try at all. I was in love with this handsome, young soldier who everyone said was on the fast track to becoming somebody big in no time when I threw that yellow dodder and found my sweet William standing behind me. We stood up there 68 years ago and promised to grow old together. Now its just me and 10 years is a long, long time to live alone with a ghost. It just never is how we plan on it to be. We'd told each other that we were finally going to sell off the farm and find some little town in Florida along the Gulf to move to that hadn't been eatin' alive by all the things they've brought in to that state that've turned it into someplace I hardly recognize anymore, but he left me. You hear that? The kids talked us out of selling and then he passed away. He just left me. He'd promised to grow old..." Mable couldn't finish. She couldn't seem to breathe and so she just cried and let the wind dry her tears before they could reach her chin.


"Now, now Mrs. Mable. Its too pretty out here to cover yourself with tears. I should've never started talkin' 'bout any of this. I just feel...I guess I just feel comfortable around you; like I could tell you 'bout everything that makes up my life. I feel I can just show you my heart and my head and you won't spit on it, laugh, or condemn me. I feel..."


"And you can," Mable said through her warm tears, "If two women, two friends can't be truthful with one another then what's left of this life isn't worth cheap horse manure anymore. Ya' hear that...cheap horse manure."


"It sure is that, Mrs. Mable. It sure is."


"Now enough of all this sad talk. People might blame it on my medications. I don't want those damn pharmaceutical companies gettin' anymore credit than they already give themselves. I can cry on my own and generate my own sadness, thank you very much. I'm afraid of so many things I see these days. Seems like if ya' made all these people stop for half a second they'd realize all the commotion is their own hands clappin' for themselves and its their own hands pattin' themselves on the back. And I hate it all. I miss the days when people did somethin' and the world around them clapped for em'."


"There ya' go again, Mrs. Mable. Talkin' the truth like it was the air outside. You'd better watch out. People don't like truth gettin' in their sweet tea. Kinda' makes em' have a gritty taste and then they have to go and ask for a new glass. I bet you stepped on a lot of toes before you came here. I can just see you back in the day."


"Back in the day...if ya' don't watch out, I might come after you just because I'm bored." Mrs Mable said with a short cackle. "You see that bush over there with the yellow buds?"


"Yes, ma'am. I do."


"Ya' know what it is?"


"Now, you know I don't know nothin' 'bout plants. I'm pretty sure I've killed several plastic plants in my lifetime. Plants is your specialty."


"It's yellow dodder. Ya' know what they say 'bout that?"


"No, but I'm sure you're goin' to tell me even if I didn't want ya' to." 


"Well, I will now that that you've begged for me to. They say that if you throw the seeds of the yellow dodder over your left shoulder and it grows, it means that your boyfriend loves you. Now, I know it sounds like a fresh load of hogwash, but I can attest that it is not. It is one of the truest things I know; its true as the day is long."


"I don't know 'bout all that, Mrs. Mable. I trust you though, but it sounds like one of them hoaxy old wive's tales. Like how if ya' drop ya' dishtowel company gonna show up. They should really say if freeloaders come round, they gonna be lookin' for somethin' free."


"Mrs. Lucy, don't you even think about startin' about old wives tales. I threw that yellow dodder over my shoulder on a Saturday and by the next Sunday my life had spun round faster than my head could think a' spinnin'. My army beau had dropped me like last week's news and I had met the nicest boy God ever did make named William Stone. He was farmin' his father's land and worked like a good pair of mules and showed me a man can be one and a Christian at the same time. I'd never seen that. Most Christian men I knew weren't what I'd call a man. Now, he was no macho big man or some flashy bulb. He was graceful and beautiful like slab of gneiss in a mountain stream. He wasn't gonna beg you to look his way, but if did you were gonna be thankful you did. He was my man and boy you shoulda' seen the size of that yellow dodder bush that sprouted from the seeds I'd thrown over my shoulder. I wish you could've seen it. I know you woulda' raised ya' hands like the Holy Spirit done showed for the first time at that Episcopal church no one seems like they ever go to...."


Be looking for Snippet 12. It may be the last of this short story, but we will see. 


Happy Reading and let me know what you think,


David