Is the Ocean Blue?
(a short story)

Bennie James slowly drove up the driveway to the house, tires crunching the gravel into thousands of tiny explosions against the still silence both outside and inside the car. His mother's labored breaths and the low hum of the motor in the car had been lost when he turned off the car radio, as he approached the road that would lead to the driveway. The road itself a wheel rutted gravel road that occasionally bared silent patches of mud to the car. "Okay Mama, we bout here."

"What?" she asked, immediately rasing her arms to strech off what was left of the nap.

"Oh Bennie, I told to wake me up when came up on the town. You know I wanted to see the town." she said looking through the window at front lawn.

"Don't worry Mama, you gonna get to see the town just fine. You gon' be here for a few days and the town ain't goin nowher'." Bennie tried to calm her.

"But I just wanted to see it Bennie, I just wanted to see it.", she frowned, the frustration in her voice a notch or two above tearshed.

He knew he could have woke her up, but then she would have dragged out the whole trip just that much longer wanting to see the church and then so-and-so's house and then another one, and another one. After driving 4 hours to get her, waiting two hours for her to get ready and 4 hours back, he just wanted to get home and take a load off. This would be easier than adding another hour in town and driving back roads so she could see the same things she'd seen last month, the same things she'd seen all her life in Bennettsville.


He stopped the car in front of the house, got out and pulled her wheelchair from the back seat. "You smell that Mama?"

"Smell what Bennie?"

"Apple blossoms, a whole breeze of apple blossom just come through. Ain't you smell it Mama."

She stiffened her back and turned towards the window, closing her eyes to the slight breeze. She smiled, "That sure is nice."

"What is?" He said bringing closing the car door, then opening her chair, pulling it up to her car door.

"Smellin' them apple blossoms. Feelin the breeze on my face." she said.

Her smile faded as her eyes opened to the wheel chair. "They take us outside, up there in At-lanna, but it's just so much noise and all kinds of carrin' on up there. I am just glad to be outta there."

"Yeah Mama, I know you are."

He opened the car door, quickly scooped her up and just as quickly settled her into the chair. Compared to the things he'd lifted in his life, she did not weigh a thing. Them long names had almost ate her up. He could never remember what the long names were, he'd seen them on paper more than once and each time a doctor or a nurse spoke the long names, he was slightly amazed that such odd collections of letters made words that could be spoken at all. They would tell him the long names standing outside of her room, like they were keeping secret from her what she already knew. Long names or no, she was dyin. He watched her fisted hands settle atop the armrests, then her three fingers unfolded, trembling like paper weighted by a rock in a strong wind, until she hooked them around the armrest to hold herself steady. She was fighting it the whole way. He wished silently that she would stop fighting, then just as silently cursed himself for thinking such a thing about his mother.

"You settled in there Mama?" he asked pushing the car door shut.

"Yeah Bennie, I'm fine. I'm just fine."

She settled in the chair, and he pushed it up the ramp he'd built. Once on the porch, he pushed her towards the door, then turned he around to face the front yard. "You wanna set out here for awhile?"

"Yes Bennie, that would be nice. That would be just fine."

"You want some water or milk or something?" he asked standing at the door.

"Some water might be nice, yup some nice cool water." she said, relaxing her grip on the arms of the chair.

She heard the door close behind her, followed by Bennie's soft clomping across the front room carpet.

She closed her eyes as a breeze scented with apple blossom crossed the porch, flavoring a memory of sitting in an apple tree, watching her Daddy across the field. He looked like a giant, stooped over shoots of corn, snatching weeds out of the ground. She opened her eyes and he was gone. She looked across the field. She could see the tractor sitting out by the shed and the corn was shooting up just fine for May. She streched those three fingers again, to get them unhooked from the arm of the wheelchair. Her baby fingers weren't moving anymore, they stayed folded against her palm. She lay her hands on top of her skinny thighs.

She was dying in pieces. She was just a little tiny woman now, and there was almost nothing left of her that worked. Everynight she went to bed with the hope that she would not wake up. That there would be no more pain, no more pills, no more needles and tubes, no more doctors and nurses. Every night she dreamed she was running, she ran to town, she ran through the fields, she ran all the way to the ocean. She felt like if she could just get up enough speed, she could fly. Every morning she woke up to more pills and doctors and needles and food that was not food at all. Every morning she woke to leaden legs and arms that ended in clawed, useless fingers. Every morning she woke to nothing worth waking to, except the days when Bennie would come and bring her back home.

Not bad, is this part of a larger work or is it stand alone?

Just something I wrote because I like the title

Not bad. You got style.

Thank you.