{"id":12944,"date":"2024-01-20T15:47:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T15:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=12944"},"modified":"2024-01-20T15:47:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T15:47:02","slug":"saving-alice-by-angela-carlton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/saving-alice-by-angela-carlton\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Alice by Angela Carlton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h2>\n

Saving Alice by Angela Carlton<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m in the hospital, but I don’t know why?<\/p>\n

My mouth is dry, and my face is numb. A nurse is there, but I can\u2019t conjure up the words to speak. An image comes to me, a red truck or was it an SUV that sat outside my house with a woman behind the wheel, ranting, screaming. As I drift in and out of sleep, the screams remind me of my mother, and I\u2019m that lost child again. My mother\u2019s not taking her meds, there were highs and lows, highs and lows, drifting like angry waves crashing on the sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlice, your dinner tray is ready,\u201d the nurse says. I see it\u2019s orange Jello, canned fruit with mushy green beans and a piece of rubbery chicken. I eat the Jello and drink some red juice, but the screams still echo inside my head, and I can see that madwoman outside my house. I can see her in the driveway cursing as she runs to the front door. The doorbell rings-rings-rings-rings. The sound is sharp, piercing like a tea kettle, steaming-steaming, roaring until my man stands before her and blocks her. Still, she beats his chest, fist after fist after fist. \u201cYou can\u2019t leave,\u201d she wails, \u201cYou cannot leave me!\u201d The woman\u2019s adrenaline allows her to break away, and her fists reach my face. She hits me over and over again before I fall to the floor, the dust rising before me in the sunspot near the bay window.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t sleep much after that. No. I didn\u2019t eat much either. The days meshed into the night and the night meshed into the day until I became weak and unresponsive.<\/p>\n

Now, I wiggle my toes in the hospital bed. I rub my hand against my cheek so I can feel something, any piece of me that\u2019s left. My mother used to run her hand over my cheek when she was medicated, and in tune.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I find sleep again.<\/p>\n

And, in my dream, I\u2019m not that child anymore but a woman, the woman who silenced the screams, the woman who is finally free.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Angela Carlton is a Georgia native. Her fiction has been published in EWR, Everyday Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, Long Story Short, High Noon, Third Iris, 50-wordstories, and Friday Flash Fiction. In addition, she won the reader\u2019s choice award with Pedestal Magazine in 2006. When she was a child, she wrote a book called, The Magic Fish and tucked it away in a box for safekeeping. Her collection of stories, \u201cA Jigsaw Life,\u201d was released in December 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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