Tag Family

Under Pressure – Daily Prompt

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You could tell, just by looking at them that they were all of the same bloodline.Same open expression, same physique, same tilt of the head when listening with undivided attention. You could be forgiven for thinking that they weren’t quite human, really. Someone, somewhere, had possessed incredibly strong genes.

So, time passed and everyone knew what to expect of the Meyers. You’d met one, you’d met them all, so it was said. It almost became folklore, that saying.

But then, then The Tragedy happened. And then, then their individuality was revealed in all its, well, unique glory, despite the circumstances.

Mother was a rock. She was the one they all turned to, the one they leaned on, the one that remained calm in the face of unspeakable horror.

Father broke. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t stop telling everyone how horrible everything was, how they would never recover, how he couldn’t see a way back from the edge. In short, he just wouldn’t shut up.

Granny remained in her rocking chair, demanding tea and toast and a drop of sherry in the evening as if nothing had changed. To be fair, she was as deaf as a post and impervious, so for her, nothing had changed really.

The Children, normally squabbling over the slightest perceived wrong, united, held fast to and supported one another as if sensing that they were stronger together. As a unit, they kept away from Father, not wanting his instability to puncture their carefully crafted strength.

And Sister? Oh she was the sly, crafty one in all of this. Like Janus, she had two faces, the dutiful daughter to all intents and purposes when she was being watched. At nightfall, under cover of streets as mute and dark as the dead, she would slip out and take her chances with anyone that would give her the glad eye, young or old, man or woman. This was freedom and she feasted on it.

The Meyers? Each as individual as the flakes of snow settling on this iron earth. Don’t underestimate them. Especially Father. I don’t think he’s as cracked as he likes you to think.

Survival of the fittest, right?

Here’s my entry into the latest WordPress Daily Prompt – today’s word is Diverse. Please do check in here to read other entries – why not take part?

The image above is of an art installation in the Memory Void (one of the empty spaces in the Libeskind Buiding at the Berlin Jewish Museum). The installation was created by Menashe Kadishman and is called ‘Shalechet’ (Fallen Leaves). The steel faces (more than 10,000) are a memorial to the Shoah (Holocaust) and completely cover the ground. Visitors are asked to walk on the faces creating an eerie clanking sound.

Cryptic

freyathewriter 8 Comments

65-06-june-22nd-2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After only two months, Helen decided to become an exotic dancer. An unexpected decision,even for her, the family agreed as they came together after Shacharit at Beth-El Reform. Well, that was the more generous interpretation. As usual strong opinions were aired to anyone who cared to listen or was cornered and rendered speechless by a mouthful of the cloying kiddush wine. The Lowensteins hunted in packs, relentlessly.

David secretly admired her chutzpah. He envied her – no, he was downright jealous. He had met all the family expectations, was a leading light in the community, ran a successful dental practice. He was a caricature of a typical Jew, he thought, complete with overbearing wife and two children who he worried that he secretly despised in an uncomfortably satisfying way. Helen – she’d flown the nest, crossed several state lines, disappeared for a while, and then surfaced in Berlin of all places, the root of their family’s near obliteration so many decades ago. All their news arrived via postcards (And oy, what was wrong with the internet? Even Great Aunt Hannah had a Facebook account!), cryptic, almost indecipherable, written in a mixture of English and increasing amounts of Yiddish that few could understand (who needs the language of the shtetl these days?).

She had started taking up a lot of bad habits and who knew when she’d last been to shul? She needed taking in hand was the almost universal opinion, a statement of fact led by David himself.

He who doth protest… Yes, he knew.

And so here he is, willing the plane to take off already, before his family realises that he too is quite literally, flying the nest like his sister. Sarah and the girls would wallow in the attention of the community for a while and then they’d find somebody else to fund their lifestyle.  His parents wouldn’t need to sit at home on Shabbat for months, such would be the attention the story of their useless children would attract. ‘Oy, how can you bear it? My boys are so good, my daughter was made to be a mother, yada yada yada.’ ‘They’re meshuggeneh, so ungrateful’… Schadenfreude, everywhere.

He stroked the creased Berlin postcard once again, running his finger along the strikingly neatly written sentence – Helen was usually so messy. He repeated the Yiddish under his breath, the English running through his mind simultaneously. “The way you write with both your left and right hands”.

There was always a choice. Right hand – same old same old. Left hand – grab your life by the balls and never look back.

Now was his time. Maybe he’d take up exotic dancing.

SoCS Feb 20/16 – contractions

freyathewriter 3 Comments

“Don’t we always stop off for a coffee when we finish our shopping?”

“Don’t I always say not to exaggerate?”

And so the stand off begins. I’m fuming because Sarah is faffing around whilst I’m loaded down with the shopping – mostly hers, I might add – because yet again, she has ‘one of her backs’. Really? I used to be sympathetic, but ‘one of her backs’ or ‘one of her heads’ seem to me to come on when it’s most convenient for her, and as I see it, least convenient for me.

She tilts her head, smiles beguilingly. I know that look. “Oh come on, Trish! Look – there’s a free table now. Why don’t I grab it and you get the coffee, and some of that lovely Victoria sponge?”

It was kind of a question, that tiny lilt at the end of the suggestion. But I know Sarah better than that. If I don’t do as she wants, she’ll sulk. Oh, not in an obvious way, but her “Oh, OK, if you haven’t got enough money’, or whatever it is she’ll say, will be laced with childish resentment.

I’ve had it. Completely had it. “No, I’m going home. I’m tired, there are too many people in town. I just want to go home right now and put my feet up.”

I walk off, heading for the car park. Selfish perhaps, because she’ll have to get the bus if she really is in need of a caffeine and sugar hit. But I have the shopping to carry. I’ve been at work all week. I’m done.

Rapid steps ring on the pavement behind me as I trudge up the hill. Bags are taken from my hand. I feel lighter, literally and figuratively. Hallelujah! She’s seen more than her own needs, just for a change. It’s been a long time coming.

“Hey Sarah, lovely to see you. let me help you with those bags.”

My heart sinks. Andy. My friend. Me – as in Trish. Not Sarah. God, are we that interchangeable?

I hate being a twin sometimes.

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Here’s this week’s entry into Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Please head on over to Linda’s blog to read all the delicious creativity that can be found there. This week, it’s all about contractions – Linda has invited us to start our entry with a contraction, and see where it takes us. I never expected to write about twins. I’m not one, although I have do have brothers and sisters. We are all spread out in both age and geography. Sussex for me, Worcestershire for one sister, Berkshire for another and my brother is currently working on the high seas as a musician on a cruise ship.

Thank you once again to Linda for creating this vibrant community!