One Morning

An egocentric man wakes up from a 7 year sleep to discover that he is married to a deranged woman he's had past relations with and is also the father of her 2 kids.

February 15, 1941 [10:45am]

 

Morning already? Those were the first words that sailed through George’s mind that day. The aurora had awakened him but he kept his eyes shut and rolled over still trying to hold on to his precious slumber. He was still partially asleep when he did somewhat open his eyes and he noticed a hazy figure stand in the sunlight shining in through the window like the headlights of a car in the depths of the mist. He blinked several times, but his morning eyes wouldn’t allow him to make clear of the figure as he lay beneath the cool sheets. He closed his eyes once more when he felt a small hand grasp his fingers but he was unalarmed from the slight delusion of sleep. Partially opening them again, he barely saw the face of a boy no older than the age of four. The boy smiled, and the innocence on the child’s face brought a sense of joy to George’s heart planting a grin on his face as well.

“Hello, little boy,” he silently said baffled because the child was unfamiliar to him, but with ease because he had not yet recovered from dreaming. “What are you doing here in my room and at this time of the morning? Isn’t there a family you belong to?”

The boy responded with a tiny chuckle.

“Oh, George, don’t be silly,” he heard the oddly familiar voice of a woman kindly say from the corner.

             Her voice snapped him out of his slumberous trance, and he blinked his eyes again trying to make the woman, who appeared to be holding something, more visible, but her face would not become clear as she stood behind the rays of the sun. “What! Who said that?!”

            “Why it’s me.” She stepped forward, her face becoming evident. She had a baby about nine months old in her arms.

           George got a glance of her and shrieked. Judy?! He thought to himself, but it was really her. The woman  whom he’d strived to dispatch from his from his life for good. And now, she was standing in his bedroom, on what seemed to be an average morning, with a small boy sitting next to her in his bed and a baby in her arms.           

           “But what are you doing here?” He said in perturbed and hysteric, “And in my room?!”

            The woman just let out a chuckle. “Oh, George, I’m your wife, silly.”

            George paused for a moment to hesitate. “Judy, I swear you have the strangest sense of humor,” and then he chuckled attempting to go along with her. “Now, seriously, what are you doing here?”

            She giggled, “I am being serious. You may not remember it too clearly because you’ve been resting.”

            “Just stop with the shenanigans, alright.”

            “What shenanigans?”

            “You want me to believe that you’re my wife?”

            “Well, yeah, I mean that’s the truth.”

            The little boy sprung up and hugged him, “Daddy!” His small voice cried with cheer.

            The woman smiled, “And these are your boys Donny.” She pointed at the four year old, “And Bobby.” She held the baby as if he were some kind of doll and he just hung there drooling and heedless of the world surrounding him.

           George glanced over the room. Come to think of it, I don’t recognize any of this.  He couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

            “Is everything alright, dear?” The woman asked apprehensively.

            “No! Where am I right now?!"            

            “Right here, darling, where you live, on 1202 Sterling road. You know that.” Was she insane? Had she gone utterly berserk? George didn’t live on Sterling Road. He hadn’t even heard of the place, but as he looked around the room noticing the tired wooden walls, the petite window with its blissful yellow drapes, the white thick blanket surrounding his body, and the small lamp lying on the unfamiliar dresser next to the bed, which wasn’t recognizable itself, he then realized that was purely alien. An eerie sting crawled down his spine as he noticed the odd pictures of a happy family and himself being unconscious in the background of each of them. He slowly turned to look at the family. Smiling, they were, as if nothing was awry. This couldn’t be true, he begged to believe. Perhaps he’d waken up in a nightmare. Maybe none of what he saw was real, but the touch of Judy caressing his shoulder was all too absolute, and he quickly threw away her arm.

            “Judy…! If this is one of your crazy schemes...”

            “Calm down, honey. You’re getting over-heated.”

            “Explain to me what is going on!”

            “What do you mean, George?!”

            “Who are these kids?! What are they doing here?!”

            “This is our family!”

            He wanted to deny everything she was telling him but wondering was against his will. He looked at the four year old child, who had a strong grip on his mother’s skirt, and as he noticed the small, joyful eyes, that thoroughly resembled his own, the pains of an eerie growth developed inside of him.

            “George, I don’t know why you’re acting this way!”

            He could hold his composure no longer, and he released an earsplitting bellow sharp enough to cut through the skin of Judy’s stubbornness. “Because just yesterday I was a twenty-five year old bachelor and a popular fella’ with good looks and women and …and ….anything I wanted…and now you're tellin' me that I’m…I’m…!”

            Judy finally explained. “Okay…okay, you remember that last night we saw each other? That night in thirty-five and …and the band music was playing, and the couples were dancing,” an amorous smile grew on her face as she began to slowly fade off topic.

            “Judy!” George cried.

            She nervously chuckled. “Well, anyway, you were being a little…er…uneasy that night, so I thought that maybe it would be alright if I added a little bit of chemicals in your drink.” Again, she chuckled timidly, only now showing off a cheesing smile.

            George sighed, “So you put drugs in my drink?”

            “Well… yeah… but, it was for your own good. You were unhappy that night, George. I couldn’t stand to see you that way, so I visited …a friend of mine.” George’s stares made her feel uncomfortable and her voice became a panic. “He studied chemistry for several years, honey, I swear. He knew what he was doing…”

 “He gave you something illegal…”

She screamed, “Could you just let me finish?!” Shocked by her sudden change of manner, George looked at her with a daunted stare as she tried to collect herself. “No, they weren’t legal, but it doesn’t matter, alright. Is it a crime that I wanted you to be happy?”

“And you kidnapped me…”

“To show you what life could be…”

“But, Judy, I was out cold for at least six year. I could’ve died!”

“…But you didn’t! You were here…with me. And I took good care of you, didn’t I? I mean, I clothed you, bathed you….you’re in a nice warm bed. I did everything for you George, much more than anyone else ever could have. If you ask me, you seemed to be very happy for the five to seven years that you were asleep. And we had a loving family and a great marriage. Everything was wonderful.”

            Is Judy really that insane? George thought to himself. He knew Judy’s character and it was clear to him that she wasn’t “all together”, but for her to go out of her way in kidnapping him, somehow managing to marry him and have his two kids, and for her to think that they were incredibly happy for several years, in which he was unconscious, he began to question her sanity to a much larger extent. He managed to remain collected. “Judy, out of the things you’ve done, I always knew that you were mad,” and then his placid tone became a roar, “But for Pete’s sake Judy…! This is by far the craziest thing you ever committed!”

            Dejected, Judy looked down.

            “And if I was asleep the entire time, how did we manage to..to…?” He looked over at both kids.

            Antsy and like a child afraid of punishment, Judy restlessly stuttered, “Well, there were a couple of nights where you would partially wake up for just a little while. And on those nights you’d, be a tad bit delusional and…well…uh…feeling sensual …and I’d be feeling…sensual …and since we were both…er…feeling …sensual I’d…”

            “Stop…stop...I don’t need to hear the rest.”

            Vexed and with a deep sigh, George bolted from the bed and ripped a suit out of the closet.

            “Wait…!Wait! Where are you going?!” Judy cried.

            George struggled to get his pants on. “I’m leaving.”

            “Leaving?! Where?!”

            He threw on his shirt. “I don’t know, but as long as I am far away from here.”

            “Oh, but George, you can’t go! Look at everything we have!”

            With his shirt still ripped opened and his pants not yet buckled up, George slowly walked up to Judy saying, “Let’s get something straight. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. You kidnapped me… You raped me…” And he stopped; that being enough for him to say before he stumbled back over to the closet, grasping his pants, and then continuing to put his cloths on.

            “But George!”

            Nevertheless, George disregarded Judy as he flung on the rest of his cloths and proceeded towards the door.

            Judy tossed the baby on the bed and scurried behind him. “George!” She cried.

            But George continued to ignore her clamoring as he stormed toward the front door.

            Judy panicked trying to connect the wires of an idea in her mind. She knew that within five steps George would open the door and departure from her life forever. She paced searching for a solution, but with each step that George took, the build up of fear and frustration became the flowing tears from her eyes, and by the time George’s hand had reached the doorknob she was wailing like the infant in the other room. George tried to overlook her sobs, but his irrevocable compassion for a woman’s tears weakened his ambition. He rolled his eyes and turned away from the door.

            “Oh, come on, Judy. You don’t have to cry,” he said provoked by his plaguing vulnerability.

            But Judy’s whimpering didn’t end. It had only gotten louder and more acute until it was disturbing every wall in the house, for with each tear that she weep she anticipated to keep George closer to her and further from the door.

            Again, George let out deep sigh. “I’m leaving, Judy and that’s it.”

            She vented a high pitched whimper similar to an injured puppy’s. “But George, I’m only a helpless woman,” she sung with heavy tears, “I need a man to take care of me…and the kids. I can’t do this by myself.”

            George put on his hat, “Well, your gunna’ have to get someone else.”

            “Someone else?! But the kids need their father. They love you, George. If not for me do it for them.”

            Little Donny ran up to his father and embraced him, his glittering eyes having the uppermost aspiration in them as he glared sincerely into George’s. “Don’t go, Daddy,” his small voice uttered, “I want you to stay. Please.”

            Now George’s options had become a balanced scale. He had no desire to remain at 1202 Sterling Road, but he could not deny the pleading of an innocent child. That and the tears of a woman created a dilemma that was powerful enough to make him walk away from the door and into the living room in which he sat down on the couch and contemplated.

Judy’s frown suddenly became a conniving smile as she placed her hand on George’s shoulder and bended down to speak silently in his ear. “Think about it George. You don’t have anything to go back to. This is your home now. You might as well make the best of it. And besides, I think you’ll learn to like being here with me and the boys.”

With a sigh, George looked up at Judy. The grin on her elegant face had no more than sheer persuasion. George had determined his decision. He took off his hat and gave it to Judy.

“Go put this on the coat rack,” she said handing the hat to Donny, and then she massaged George’s shoulders, “See, I knew we’d come to an understanding.”

But George just sat there vaguely pondering the life that he would have

…and the life that he had no more.

           

Author's Note

(please leave constructive critism and not rude comments)

Reviews

[TheFemininePad]

The dialog is definitely improved her a lot. It still needs some additional work though. One thing I feel like your dialog is missing is that the George and Judy speak like they were born in our generation. They don't speak like elderly people do. They should speak how they should in the age range of that character. With that said I think your on the right track here. Just keep working on. Perhaps some research into older speaking patterns might help to boost the quality further.