Pondering

A short story i had written previously for a contest, just about the feeling of not fitting in and discovering your true gift in life.

Small, frail, and young,  Annie May Myer had grown up her entire life living in the overcoming shadow of both her brothers.  

Henry Myer was a champion in all things intellectual and was bi-talented, as Annie put it, he could write, draw, and play numerous instruments.  

Nathan Myer was tall, handsome, all the girls seemed to like him, but not just that, he was certainly the star of any sort of athletics team you placed him on.  It had gotten to a point that scouts for all sorts of sports had his number on speed dial, and poor Nathan kept his phone perpetually shut off for the amount of calls received.  

And then there was Annie.  Short, skinny, only about yea high compared to her lumbering brothers, and felt completely stuck in the middle.  She would wonder about with her teddy bear tucked safely underneath her arm and her loose white blonde hair trailing down her back in wisps, and her blue eyes always cast up towards the skies in thought.  

No matter how one found Annie she was always in thought.  She contemplated everything, the sky, the moon, the TV, everything.  And when she finally chanced to speak it was sure to be a question.  Her parents thought it was just a passing phase, but instead as she steadily began to turn seven, her question came more frequently and were beginning to grow more intricate. 

Her parents soon ran out of answers and her brothers out of patience, so she began to make herself more and more secluded and spent most of her time lying listlessly in the grass in her backyard, staring up at the sky, sucking on her little white thumb, and hugging her teddy close as those large blue eyes clouded up with deep thoughts once more.  

But even though she was odd to most, she still was very much a little girl and wanted very much to be liked and have friends.  And though she never dared say, she loved both her brothers with as much sisterly affection as one little girl of her size could hold.  She idolized them, their talents were mesmerizing to her, until she reached the solid age of eight and she realized she didn’t just want to watch her brothers and their amazing ways, she wanted to do it too.  She wanted to catch up and live up to their incredibly impossible standards.  So she went out for sports to begin with.  Because of her size she could not run very fast and therefore found out quickly enough that sports was certainly not her forte and also found the uniforms ugly.  

Soon after she decided the arts would be more her speed, and she sat down resolutely in front of the grand piano that was three times her size.  Her little fingers could barely fit enough to press four keys at the same time.  She was able to pound out Hot Cross Buns and was delighted to find her parents were impressed.  Her brothers claimed it was good, and since she felt heightened by the feeling of kind words and encouragement she played Hot Cross Buns all the time.  For hours she would play the little ditty, over and over again, in different keys, sometimes high and sometimes low.  She would sing along with it in her sweet little of pitched voice for hours until it was sore.  Finally her parents put an end to it, saying that they thought her to kind to play so often, she got the hint, for if you haven’t already noticed, she wasn’t stupid.  

Guitar hurt her fingers, and she found she could only draw stick figures and grew tired of them anyway.  She wrote a little story but felt so discouraged after reading it herself she swore she would never write again.  She tried to answer some of the questions her brothers did in school to catch up with Henry’s superior intellect but didn’t understand a single word in the question, much less the question itself, much less the answer, or anything related to the answer.  

Finally she gave up.  And when no one took notice of the dear little thing she slipped quietly to her pink room and cried.  Her little sobs wrenched her tiny body; her mind racing with her own ineptitude at life.  She felt as though she could never reach the high level her brothers had set before her.  She could think of nothing to make her feel better than to go into the backyard in the nice cool autumn air and brood on the things that had occurred over the last few weeks.  

All she wanted was to catch up, all she wanted was to fit in, but even the thought of trying to fit in did not appeal to her, all she wanted to do was lay quietly and ponder life, and watch the clouds pass by.  She did this so often now that her brothers nicknamed her daydream.  She thought it was pretty and didn’t mind the teasing tone in which it was portrayed.  

One day she asked her parents at dinner what her gift would be, Henry had his smarts, music, and art, and Nathan had his athletics and his certainly no shortage of girl interests, but what was her gift?  Her parents only told her that she was too young to know what that would be that when she was older like Nathan and Henry she should know.  

This in no way satisfied her, but what could she do? Or say?  She didn’t, she only pondered.  Not long after it finally came to her, her gift.  As she was lying in the grass pondering she saw an old woman, sitting all alone on her porch looking up at the sky and pondering, she was so alone and only rocked in her little rocking chair by herself.  Annie felt immensely compassionate for her and put away her typically shy nature and approached the old woman.  She didn’t say a single word, only sat real close to the woman and looked up at the sky and pondered.  A few moments later the old woman’s aged and wrinkled hand began to gently caress that white blonde head.  

That night when she had gone to bed and lay awake reminiscing, she realized what her gift was, her gift wasn’t tangible, it was hardly even noticeable.  Her gift wasn’t anything she did or could do, her gift was her, the small ounce of presence she could give to anyone who needed it.  Not even a word need be said, just the fact that she was there for whoever needed made all the difference.  

And after a good many sleepless days, Annie was finally able to close her eyes and fall into a deep and longing sleep in which she pondered no more.  Her frail little body enclosing the most beautiful gift anyone could ever obtain or try to, for nothing could ever truly out place the gift of love.   

Reviews

[She With Eyes Like Unsh..]

Oh, this story is so beautiful! I think that it portrays the constant searching of every person to find what they are good at. You, my friend, are very good at writing!