Prompt: There was nothing seriously wrong.
There was nothing seriously wrong, but she couldn't stop crying. The anxiety had been building up over the week even though she couldn't put her finger on the exact reason. The basics were taken care of: bills paid, house cleaned (well not really, but things were put away at least), and work presented itself every day during the past week. So what had her so sad?
Then it hit her. It was him! She missed him. Missed his smile, his conversations, his intelligence, and his look. He had been in her mind and her heart for the past six months. Ever present, giving her some of the best daydreams, the best fantasy conversations she had ever had.
Damn it, she thought. Why? If he wasn't interested, why did he take up so much of her heart? So much of her thoughts? She wished he would just be gone from her mind. But he remained, ever present, ever there, filling her soul without having a clue.
--Nancy Janssen, RBWG member
* * *
There was nothing seriously wrong that he could see. The pickup was upside down over the bank, so he couldn't possibly get it out, but it looked all right. The motor was still running.
"Hay-loo," a voice called.
He turned to see an older man in a heavy jacket coming with a flashlight.
"Think I just need to turn it over," he called.
"I'll get the tractor."
Soon the pickup was right-side-up. He wondered what to do next. Just say thank you? He said, "I've only got a $20 bill." His dad never took money for pulling people out.
"That'll do," the old man said. "It's not enough, but it will do."
--Sharon Hoover, RBWG member
* * *
There was nothing seriously wrong.
“Can I say something?”
“Nothing you can say will change things, I’m going to be laughed at and made fun of tomorrow. “
“Why? Just because the shorts don’t exactly match the top?”
“You don’t realize how the kids are.”
”Maybe you need to find some new friends.”
“Mother, really”
Her mother handed her the latest brochure about the ‘Smile Train’.
“This is serious. There is nothing seriously wrong your outfit.
--Eileen Callan RBWG member
* * *
There was nothing seriously wrong with my life if only I'd known that. Unfortunately FDR's famous words on how the only thing we have to fear is fear itself were yet to be learned in some history text and an accurate grasp of the world in which I had been born was even farther in the future. For now I was in the grasp of the Holy Catholic Church whose institutions and catechism books had been honed over the centuries to sooth the burdened peasant to his fate in the confidence of a happy afterlife. Now I was in the grasp of an organization given to characterizing human life as "this vale of tears." Now I was viewing the future as a two pronged journey. One in which temptation was to be avoided at all costs. The other in which serial obligations would be met and checked off until, at last, completion would let me off the hook. There was nothing seriously wrong with my life except my view of it.
--Tom Hoyer, RBWG member
* * *
There was nothing seriously wrong. There were however, many things not actually right. Somehow the sum of those trivial, seemingly insignificant concerns added up to a crisis. When the weight of these things begins to wear on me like a heavy blanket; when breathing begins to feel an effort rather than a reflex, I try to focus on the fact that nothing is seriously wrong. I try to banish my anxiety as it threatens to bury me alive, but it doesn’t always work. My husband tells me “at least you don’t have a brain tumor” as one friend does, or “you aren’t a paraplegic” as another friend is, or “you aren’t undergoing chemotherapy” as yet another friend is. He is clueless to the fact that this does not make me feel better. He couldn’t possibly understand why these reminders simply summon my darkest, most unspeakable fears. This is the truth as I know it; there is something seriously wrong, we just don’t know what it is yet.
--Michele Setton,
* * *