Story A
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:20 pm
STORY A
Living Next Door to Leonard Cohen
Terri Thomason touched two strands of wire together. The explosion was heard across three counties.
Terri had loved playing with dolls. The closet in her room was her secret den, where she kept whole families of them. Her parents ignored their daughter’s games. Terri craved their attention, but they were always too busy with their work. Jazz was their only other interest.
Daniel ‘Duke’ Thomason was a professor in chemical engineering. His wife, Faith-Arlene, lectured in nutritional sciences across town, at Carmel Kinsey College. They would often rent out her room to students from the college, until they were able to find a place of their own. It was a regular feature of the Thomason’s life.
Sometimes Terri had to give up her bedroom for a few weeks while boarders stayed with them. She resented being consigned to the attic room. Knowing that her great grandfather had a college named after him didn’t carry any weight with Terri. Students caused her grief, and the hatred built over the years, as a steady stream of wet-behind-the-ears freshmen, traipsed through her bedroom. “Another year, another dork,” mumbled Terri to herself.
Terri grew up to become a bitter young woman. She was a natural scholar, delighting her parents with her academic success. They saw the external flowering of their daughter. Her resentful attitude and bitterness lay deeply hidden. Terri could not remember love or even warmth from her parents. How could she remember what she’d never had?
Once, when she was eight, she was frightened in the street, when a stranger almost had her in his grasp, and Terri had run and run, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. But mom was, “too busy to talk right now Terri, can’t you see I’m baking?” and pushed her away. The one heart she trusted spurned her. She buried the pain deep. So deep, that it took thirty years to struggle into the light of day. Counselling sessions, in which Terri revisited and reopened her mental scars, dredged it back up. But that was yet to come.
In time, college friends gave way to the challenges of university. Escaping the liberal straightjacket of her parents, Terri had discovered self-discipline. Working hard at her studies brought genuine praise and true respect. Time away from studying involved a new friend, alcohol. Alcohol would be the slow virus, which flowed through her bloodstream, as Terri nurtured her bitterness. Her dependency grew by degrees. The bitterness bubbled up through her, like the gas that filled her car’s fuel tank to the brim. She became adept at keeping the lid tightly on it. For it was volatile, and dangerous. If it should ever overflow, chaos, death and destruction were inevitable. And Terri would be the first to burn.
Despite the drink, her initial Chemistry Degree did not tax Terri. Her Masters took far more effort, but her Ph.D. severely tested her. She had to dig deep into her stores of discipline, focus and resolve. They each began to fail her.
Terri was found wandering alongside a railroad track by Dave. He was an Amtrak worker, who had lost his wife to suicide two months earlier at that spot. Dave would walk the same route his wife had taken, in hopes of preventing a similar loss to another family. Dave had a big heart. He had suffered a great loss. In future years, Dave would torment himself about stopping Terri’s suicide attempt. For now though, all the appropriate authorities took a hand in bringing Terri out of her mental despair, which she struggled to share with anyone. Her parents, incapable of understanding Terri’s academic failure, and fearing the stigma of having a mentally ill daughter, buried themselves further in their work, for years to come.
Ever been in a mental hospital? Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between staff and patients. The staff firmly believe that they run the wards. “What idiots!” mused Terri, “the asylum runs itself. Staff and patients are merely the red and white corpuscles of its lifeblood.”
Inactivity is addictive there. One must never confuse movement with action. Terri loved the attention she received. She wallowed for months on end with medications of unknown origins. Dave visited often, bringing books and music. Terri hated Dave. “I’d be dead by now but for him,” she thought, but began to savor some books and music, more and more.
Terri’s return to the community had been carefully engineered, as Terri played the sanity game during many counselling sessions. “Fools,” she thought. But it took years, many years, to convince them to release her. With the money she’d inherited from her parents’ estate, she moved into a small house on Mount Baldy.
Terri had fallen in love with Leonard Cohen. It was Dave who had given Terri all the Cohen books and music he could find, but Terri was bitter, besotted, intelligent and quite mad.
Knowing she couldn’t have him, living next door to Leonard on Mt Baldy, was as close as Terri would be, in this life. Freedom beckoned, as Terri mixed the chemical ingredients into a deadly ‘cake,’ remembering what her mother did to her, all those years ago. The preparation of the cake was easy for Terri, thinking to herself, “I’ve got the perfect mix, and the perfect music, to send me and Leonard to paradise.” As “Jazzer, drop your axe,” was drowned out by two wires……………….touching.
Living Next Door to Leonard Cohen
Terri Thomason touched two strands of wire together. The explosion was heard across three counties.
Terri had loved playing with dolls. The closet in her room was her secret den, where she kept whole families of them. Her parents ignored their daughter’s games. Terri craved their attention, but they were always too busy with their work. Jazz was their only other interest.
Daniel ‘Duke’ Thomason was a professor in chemical engineering. His wife, Faith-Arlene, lectured in nutritional sciences across town, at Carmel Kinsey College. They would often rent out her room to students from the college, until they were able to find a place of their own. It was a regular feature of the Thomason’s life.
Sometimes Terri had to give up her bedroom for a few weeks while boarders stayed with them. She resented being consigned to the attic room. Knowing that her great grandfather had a college named after him didn’t carry any weight with Terri. Students caused her grief, and the hatred built over the years, as a steady stream of wet-behind-the-ears freshmen, traipsed through her bedroom. “Another year, another dork,” mumbled Terri to herself.
Terri grew up to become a bitter young woman. She was a natural scholar, delighting her parents with her academic success. They saw the external flowering of their daughter. Her resentful attitude and bitterness lay deeply hidden. Terri could not remember love or even warmth from her parents. How could she remember what she’d never had?
Once, when she was eight, she was frightened in the street, when a stranger almost had her in his grasp, and Terri had run and run, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. But mom was, “too busy to talk right now Terri, can’t you see I’m baking?” and pushed her away. The one heart she trusted spurned her. She buried the pain deep. So deep, that it took thirty years to struggle into the light of day. Counselling sessions, in which Terri revisited and reopened her mental scars, dredged it back up. But that was yet to come.
In time, college friends gave way to the challenges of university. Escaping the liberal straightjacket of her parents, Terri had discovered self-discipline. Working hard at her studies brought genuine praise and true respect. Time away from studying involved a new friend, alcohol. Alcohol would be the slow virus, which flowed through her bloodstream, as Terri nurtured her bitterness. Her dependency grew by degrees. The bitterness bubbled up through her, like the gas that filled her car’s fuel tank to the brim. She became adept at keeping the lid tightly on it. For it was volatile, and dangerous. If it should ever overflow, chaos, death and destruction were inevitable. And Terri would be the first to burn.
Despite the drink, her initial Chemistry Degree did not tax Terri. Her Masters took far more effort, but her Ph.D. severely tested her. She had to dig deep into her stores of discipline, focus and resolve. They each began to fail her.
Terri was found wandering alongside a railroad track by Dave. He was an Amtrak worker, who had lost his wife to suicide two months earlier at that spot. Dave would walk the same route his wife had taken, in hopes of preventing a similar loss to another family. Dave had a big heart. He had suffered a great loss. In future years, Dave would torment himself about stopping Terri’s suicide attempt. For now though, all the appropriate authorities took a hand in bringing Terri out of her mental despair, which she struggled to share with anyone. Her parents, incapable of understanding Terri’s academic failure, and fearing the stigma of having a mentally ill daughter, buried themselves further in their work, for years to come.
Ever been in a mental hospital? Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between staff and patients. The staff firmly believe that they run the wards. “What idiots!” mused Terri, “the asylum runs itself. Staff and patients are merely the red and white corpuscles of its lifeblood.”
Inactivity is addictive there. One must never confuse movement with action. Terri loved the attention she received. She wallowed for months on end with medications of unknown origins. Dave visited often, bringing books and music. Terri hated Dave. “I’d be dead by now but for him,” she thought, but began to savor some books and music, more and more.
Terri’s return to the community had been carefully engineered, as Terri played the sanity game during many counselling sessions. “Fools,” she thought. But it took years, many years, to convince them to release her. With the money she’d inherited from her parents’ estate, she moved into a small house on Mount Baldy.
Terri had fallen in love with Leonard Cohen. It was Dave who had given Terri all the Cohen books and music he could find, but Terri was bitter, besotted, intelligent and quite mad.
Knowing she couldn’t have him, living next door to Leonard on Mt Baldy, was as close as Terri would be, in this life. Freedom beckoned, as Terri mixed the chemical ingredients into a deadly ‘cake,’ remembering what her mother did to her, all those years ago. The preparation of the cake was easy for Terri, thinking to herself, “I’ve got the perfect mix, and the perfect music, to send me and Leonard to paradise.” As “Jazzer, drop your axe,” was drowned out by two wires……………….touching.
) A compelling read.
'taken' out with this poor, tragic figure and woman 
.
~ the one that made me laugh out loud! So, will keep my one, good eye open for "chidren"