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First, I want to thank all SIXTEEN of you who entered my wewrite contest. I feel very grateful and honored that you did. The winners and prizes will be announced soon. While I am torturing myself with that task (what was I thinking? WHO AM I TO JUDGE?! ) I hope you will find my own continuation of the story of interest. I simply could not resist, especially now that I have read all of your stories. I know your words have shaped my characters' characters, and for that you have my deepest thanks.

If I have not resteemed your entry, I have not received it. Please add it to the comments on either this post or the contest announcement post. Thank you!

The Prompt

by @owasco

The Sandwich

"Ugh! The bread is soaking wet! Bread is not supposed to be soaking wet!" he snarled at me as he spit a soggy mouthful of half-chewed peanut butter sandwich into a tissue. I stood at attention next to his bed. He handed the sodden and heavy tissue to me.

He was now vegan, grain free, nightshade free, lectin free, phytic acid free, and deaf to my feeble protestations. He was not free, however, from his acutely tuned palate, which was maddeningly different from mine.

He had requested a peanut butter sandwich. I knew meeting all his new diet criteria would be a bitch, but I rose to the challenge. I had to.

I chose a very small ten dollar loaf of 'bread' and bought it. I bought some raw peanuts. I shelled the peanuts. I soaked, sprouted, and dehydrated the peanuts. After very lightly roasting them, I ground those peanuts into peanut butter. I then very carefully smeared the freshly ground peanut butter onto the somewhat normal looking bread. I made sure to get the peanut butter to the edges just like I had learned in home economics class long, long ago.

I knew how to make a proper tea sandwich.

I now spent my life trying to make this man happy. I signed up for that didn't I? Wasn’t that my reason for being? To make this man happy?

Well, he was not happy with that sandwich.

@Owasco's Continuation

My Wish

At first I could barely hear the low hum, and I thought it a new trick of phantom sound in my aging ears. He appeared to be listening to it himself, his eyes focused on nothing, his body very still. The sound grew, and I grew confused along with it. As I walked past him to the closed window to see if perhaps there were a low-flying plane out there, a gust of wind impossibly blew through the room. The shabby curtains parted a bit to let in a stream of mid-day sunlight that rested on his face and I suddenly knew the unfamiliar sound for what it was.

Prayer. He was praying.

Both he and I began to cry. All those years of trying everything we could to heal his crippled body suddenly buried us in sorrow. I fell to my knees, placed my forehead on his bed, and let an enormous grief take me. He and I had borne a great many miseries that I had shunted aside for a dozen years or more, just so that I could keep putting one foot in front of the other: his painful losses of strength and movement, the years of medical catastrophes, the parade of medical practitioners, his loss of hope, my loss of hope, and now this, an uneaten sandwich that an endless love had built.

He continued to pray through his tears, and the strange words grew louder into a pleading song. His bed began to shake with his sobs. A second gust lifted the bed a few inches, lifting me with it. I felt a new power surge through my self, even though my still-falling tears had soaked through his sheets and all the cushioning that had accumulated on his bed over the years; sheepskins, goose feather toppers and cotton mattress pads thickened the bed just to make him a bit more comfortable in the prison that his bed had become. As one floating piece, we began to slowly rotate in the center of the room.

The third blast of wind blew open a bedside book that I had bought a few months earlier. I found the beautiful book in a used bookshop and instantly knew it was destined for him. The book was written in Arabic and he could not read it, but he spent many hours with it in his still strong hands, turning page after page from left to right, spellbound. On this day, as we and the bed lifted and turned, I suddenly understood that the book was a Koran and he was somehow praying in Arabic. He was reciting the ancient words of Mohammed. My hands sought his. Together we prayed, while we continued to float and slowly spin a few inches above the floor.

Eventually - hours later it may have been because the room was now fully dark - his utterances came to an end. He, the bed, and I lowered back to the floor.

The room was the same room. The air was the same air. The wind had ceased, and it was time for more steps to be taken.

I could feel him smile before I could see it, and I smiled along too. We took a few peaceful moments together there in the dark, still holding hands.

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“Can I get you anything honey?”

“Thanks for listening, Mom. That sandwich really sucked though. Is there any celery? I'm pretty sure I'll like that peanut butter on celery.”

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All images are my own unless otherwise stated.

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