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WRITERS EYES / ASCRIBER Uniting Writers Around The World Online Writing Group
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by
Dollybird
A Tall Story
The rescue centre was full of bustle and noise. The crowd of folks were getting ready to move out, all but one. Margaret Mann, that was her name, was the last to arrive just when everybody else was leaving. Since I was helping to comfort people after the upheaval, I helped her to a place where she could get some sleep. She had been given dry clothes, some soup and was warmer now.
At last she awoke in her allotted truckle bed and I moved towards her, bearing a cup of tea and a piece of toast. I asked her about herself.
`Oh! I am no different to anybody else.` She gazed around at the few stragglers. She was diminutive, slim with long blonde hair.
`But each one has a different story to tell.` I encouraged survivors to talk about their ordeal.
`My name is Margaret Mann,` she told me.
Her name was sizeable compared with her physique. `…and I do not live in the village by the sea. I have a cottage up towards the moor.`
`A cottage sounds beautiful.`
`It is, or was.`
She wiped a tear from her eye with the sleeve of the cardigan she had been provided with. When she was brought there she was soaking wet and shivering with cold so much that words would not come out of her mouth.
Now, however, she talked freely.
`There`s a lane that has trees on each side and the stream on the left sloping to the cottage. I remember that stream when I was a little girl. My uncle planted these trees himself.`
`What kind of trees?` She had stopped and I urged her on.
`Oak trees. An avenue of oaks, stout and sturdy. “Hearts of Oak” Uncle used to say. They were stunted though like all trees near the Atlantic Ocean. Prevailing winds make them grow sideways, I mean, the growth is on the other side of the prevailing sea winds.`
`You said the cottage is down this lane?`
`That`s right. In a sunny hollow sheltered from the weather. And the stream carries on alongside the cottage, too. There were islands, little bits of gravel and earth piled up with tufted green grass on top. The same stream gurgles its way, I mean, oh dear!`
I might have interrupted her reminiscences. But she had stopped. I Put an arm around her thin shoulders.
`So you were in your home when it all happened?`
`Oh no. I was in my car.`
`Which was parked outside your home?`
`Oh No! That`s just it. My poor car. It got in the way you see and I was in it.`
`So you were marooned in your car but it was not outside your cottage?`
`If I told you where it was, you would not believe me.`
`Try me.` I was intrigued.
`My lovely red Morgan, you know, with a hood and at the touch of a button it could be opened or shut. I love to drive fast and the weather was fair in the morning. Was it yesterday morning? Seems such an age ago. I put down the hood and the wind swept back my hair.` She sat and stared into space.
`You drove fast in your lane?`
She looked at me and she laughed. `Don`t be daft. You can`t drive fast on our little lanes. I drive fast on the big road and I did so that morning. I was on my way to the supermarket to get in supplies. I do that about every fortnight or so. The big road was fairly empty and I sailed along singing away to the car radio. I can remember exactly what the song was too. “Raindrops keep falling on my head…..funny that. It wasn`t raining then.
Margaret stared into space again and I urged her to go back to telling me her experience where she left off.
`You did your shopping?` I prompted.
She looked back at me and her eyes twinkled. `Yes, I did that all right. I always put all the fresh food like lettuce and cabbage and fruit and the freezer stuff like ice cream and meat onto the front passenger seat. You see, I always unload them and put them away first The rest of the goods I put in the boot and I can unload them when I like. So that`s what I did and the sun had disappeared so, after I got into the car I put up the hood and set off for home. I had the radio on and sang along but it wasn`t raindrops on my head, this time.`
`But it did rain and it rained hard didn`t it?`
`You can say that again. I was driving fast along the big road with the windscreen wipers going full tilt. Ahead I saw a really, really black sky. Do you know, I have never seen such a black sky in my whole life. Inky black it was with absolutely straight sides and I was driving right into it. But I didn`t stop. I wanted to get home you understand.`
`It was a rain storm.`
`A phenomenal cloudburst …I drove on but although the radio was playing music, I wasn`t singing along, in fact I could hardly hear the music for the noise of the rain.`
`You were dry inside the car,` I remarked, remembering that she came in soaked to the skin and had to be given dry clothing.
`I was dry but my poor little car was wet. When I left the big road I realised that it was being pushed along through flood waters. And then it hit me, the water I mean. My Morgan was over its wheels in water. The stream had overflowed with a vengeance and was rushing down the oak avenue towards my cottage and I was going along with it. I was hurtling with the stream that had become a river that had become a flash flood.`
`What happen then?`
Margaret began to cry. She sobbed and I handed her my clean hanky.
`I have never felt so frightened and lonely in all my life.`
Margaret blew her nose, sniffed and continued.
`My car came to a standstill with the engine still running and the radio still giving out music. I looked around me. There were branches and leaves and I couldn`t believe my eyes. I had come to a halt on top of a tree.`
`On the TOP of a tree?`
`Yes, an oak tree with engine still running so I supposed the wheels were still going around. I put her out of gear and watched the water swirling past me. I dared not open the door in case I wobbled the car off the branches it had settled onto. I kept on the engine to keep me warm, I was shivering with both the cold and the fright`
`You were marooned on an oak tree in your avenue of oak trees, all alone.`
`It was rather murky, no sunlight only my headlights glaring out over the tops of the other oak trees in the avenue. I had the lights on when I was on the road. I switched them off, I needed the battery to keep the inside of my car balmy. I didn`t know how long I would be there, what would happen next.`
`Was the radio still cheering you up with music?`
`Well, it was but the swirl of the water was so noisy, I couldn`t hear it.`
`You sat there, how long?`
`All the rest of the afternoon and all through the night.`
`Good heavens.`
`Yes, I prayed all the time that somebody would come to my rescue.`
`I must have dropped off to sleep but even in my sleep I could hear droning sounds in the sky.`
`Helicopters?`
`I didn`t know what it was. It went on all the afternoon. I saw one. It absolutely ignored me.`
`Perhaps they didn`t see you.`
`Perhaps not, they seemed more interested in going towards the village.`
`The village was flooded like your cottage.`
`Of course. I suppose I knew really but all I could think of was my own predicament.`
`Of course.`
`At last, when dawn had broken, it was all quiet. The sound of the flow of water had died down a bit. I heard the sound of an aeroplane. I peered up into the sky but there was no sign of it, other than the drone of its engine. I tried to open the window but it only went down an inch or so. Then I caught sight of one of the white plastic bags I had been taking grapes from to quench my thirst. The white plastic just poked out and it blew about before it disappeared. I poked another one out and another and then the din of the engine was really loud.`
`A helicopter?`
`Yes. At last somebody had seen. Me - stranded up in my tree.`
`Was it raining then?`
`No. Oh I see! Why was I wet through? In my excitement I tried to open my door but my dear car wobbled drunkenly and it tumbled down, broke down through the branches of the tree and fell into the swollen stream. I hung on for dear life while the stream water rushed past me. I could see, on the other side, the lane down to my cottage covered with grey mud that smelled awful.`
`The helicopter helped you out of your tight spot?`
`A very brave fellow came down on a rope, hitched me up and…`
`And that`s how you ended up here.`
`I believe you.`
`You don`t think it`s a tall story do you?` We both laughed and laughed.
Comments
Opening=8
Characteristaion: 8
Dialogue: 10
Setting: 9
Plot: 7
Suspense: 9
Ending: 7
Enjoyment: 9
comments: A good story, probably needs the ending a little more tense. Perhaps the car left wedged in the tree and she'd have to think of a way to get it down. She got wet because the roof canvas was ripped by branches.
Robbo