Don'T Do This (540 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 3 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by AshK <alkite at gmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-10-04 11:52:16 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Hilde peered over the edge at the ground below and then at the blue sky all around her.
Voices marched through her head, almost tripping over each other as they rushed through.
Her mother's voice, when Hilde was five yelling at her for playing with her cousin under
the porch. "Proper ladies do not play in the dirt Hildegarde!" A teacher at her school,
on the day of her graduation "Now Hilde, you will enjoy finishing school. Girls just don't
get to be veterinarians, maybe your husband will work in a field like that." Her best
friend's voice, both of them seventeen "Hilde, you can't seriously want to marry that boy.
His daddy is a miner." Her Daddy's voice, scornful of that same miner's son, "Hilds, you
are going to marry Colonel Frank's boy, it has been settled. No miner's boy is good enough
for my baby girl!"
She remembered the day she found out that miner's son was killed, working at the same job
his daddy had done for years. That news came two days before her marriage to
Franklin J Franks, the man her daddy had picked just for her. A piece of her soul
died with Jimmy and made the tears that fell during her wedding, the most real emotion
she had all day.
Her emotions disappeared for many years, until her first pregnancy. The little girl
Franklin named Annette, was the most amazing thing that Hilde had ever seen.
Soon after Annie's birth, Franklin hired in a nanny "Just to help you with the details,
my dear. A lady of your stature just doesn't spend her days changing babies and
wiping noses." Hilde argued against the nanny and plead with Franklin for weeks,
but in the end she did what all the other proper ladies were doing and watched as
another woman raised her first born. The next three boys were no exception as Hilde
spent her time entertaining her Husband's constituents, and very little time with her
precious babies.
All these memories were standing there with her, the ground below and the sky all
around as she felt the wind whipping at her unruly curls. Franklin had always encouraged
her to keep her hair pulled back in a severe bun, as ladies didn't wear their hair loose,
but up here so close to the sky and the golden sun she felt that a bun would be a sacrilege
of sorts. Next, she thought that possibly the parade of voices shouldn't be there with her either.
That the years of "Ladies don't do this" and "Ladies don't do that" needed to be
left behind her in this moment. She didn't want to feel the weight of negativity from time
gone by, she needed to be free. She needed to do something for herself. Finally, there
would be something in her life that was on her own terms, done because she choose to do it.
All that was left was the jump. The voice of an old family friend Vivian made a brief appearance.
It was the afternoon Hilde tried to tell someone about her decision,
and Vivian only responded by wrinkling her brow and uttering "Oh Hilde, please."
In fact, Hilde had been thinking about that three word admonition for weeks.
She was convinced that ladies really didn't do this, and that possibly she should
just leave well enough alone. In the end, the pull of freedom was more than she could
ignore. The thought of choosing her own path caressed her mind and romanced her spirit.
This first act of defiance intoxicated her in a way that the Brandy she never dared taste,
could have never done.
It was time. Her dainty feet pushed away from the solid world she was in, out into
the big blue sky. The joy blossomed in her chest as the world around her embraced
her in flight. It felt like an eternity passed as the ground rushed to meet her.
She felt a final jerk and a snap as her parachute of orange and yellow blossomed in
the azure of the cloudless sky. At 78 years old and seven thousand feet in the air,
Hilde was finally free.
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-12 05:54:10 EDT (#)
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Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2006-03-09 13:54:36 EST (#)
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 12:11:49 EST (#)
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