Raven Wolf

The tan phone in the living room, started ringing, catching Mary Anne's attention as she was busy with her dayly chores. She was a bit surprised to hear Jim Jacobs, her daugher's minister, on the other end of the line. She tried to make sense of what he was saying, "They found my number in her purse...." She didn't hear anything else, and fell to the floor.

The emergency room was a madhouse of yelling, bright light, and too many broken-hearted people. She'd manged to get her husband, Wayne, on the phone, and after what seemed like an eternity, were able to talk to one of the doctors.

"She was dead when the EMT's got to her, but they were able to revive her. She's in a deep coma. There's really no telling how long she might hang on. It could be a day, a week, or she may not wake up at all."

Her car was cleaned out, and the blue and white rain jacket found, undamaged, in the back seat. Her father was given the task of taking it back to the school, since her mother knew that she had helped some guy named "John Gray", who had car troubles one day, meaning it was probably his jacket. A receptionist went to the class John was in to deliver it to him.

"Someone left this for you."

His eyes widened. When she hadn't arrived at school that fatefull Monday morning, he'd been unable to think of anything other than what had happened to her, and what he was going to do. He didn't have her phone number, her address, anything.

"Where is she? What happened to her?" He demanded.

"I don't know. Someone just told me to deliver this to you."

He was heartbroken. Did this mean she was dead? He couldn't bear to think that. Flashes of the time they'd had together filled his mind. He couldn't take being alone anymore.

A few days later, knumb to everything else, he picked up the phone to call Mary, the married woman he'd been having an affair with up until the time he'd met her..... He couldn't think about that now.

The next week was filled with waiting. People were brought in, and often brought back out with a toe-tag. Slowly, word spread across several counties of what had happened. The police came in, prepared to present a ticket for failure to yeald right of way. When they learned what had happened, the ticket was waved. There was an investigation into who the mystery man in the truck was, but with the only eye witness circling the drain, there wasn't much to go on. The woman who'd hit her was fortunatly unharmed, and had not seen the other truck. Mary Anne was suprised to find herself, on more than one occasion, in a store, picking up a few essentials during the short time she spent away from her daughter's bedside, suddenly interupted by total strangers who seemed to know who she was, and asked "How's your daughter?" An ecclectice parade of strange people came into the ICU waiting room, wanting to see her. Then, there was the day when Brandon Reed arrived. He was a guy she'd known in high school and had once been close to, before his obsession with her caused him to attempt to rape her and then, on several occasions, out of some kind of insane rage, to kill her by running her off the road. He pushed his way toward where she lay, before her mother interveined. An argument insued, with him insisting he had to see her, and her parents and Jim refusing. He finaly backed off, saying before he left.... "I hope you don't think I came here just to gloat." Her mother had had enough. "Get the hell out of here!" She demanded. That was the last they ever saw of him.

She was oblivious to the drama playing out outside, caught up in a drama of a different kind, on some other plane of existance. She was in some kind of dark stairway, with white stairs, spiraling upward. Somewhere along the way, they dissappeared, and she found herself somehow caught in some dark world in between worlds.... A limbo. There was no sense of time, or space, or anything. Then, something in her responded to a sound....

Aerosmith:: Rag Doll

(Chorus)

Rag Doll, livin' in a movie

Hot tramp, daddy's little cutie

So fine, they'll never see ya

Leavin' by the back door, yeah

Hot time, get it while it's easy

Don't mind, come on up and see me

Rag Doll, baby won't you do me

Like you done before

I'm feelin' like a bad boy

Mmm, just like a bad boy

I'm rippin' up a Rag Doll

Like throwing away an old toy

Some babe's talkin' real loud

Talkin' all about the new crowd

Try and sell me on an old dream

A new version of the old scene

Speak easy on the grape vine

Keep shufflin' the shoe shine

Old tin lizzy, do it till you're dizzy

Give it all ya got until you're put out of your misery

(Chorus)

Yes, I'm movin', Yes I'm movin'

get ready for the big time

Tap dancing on a land mine

Yes I'm movin', Yes I'm movin'

Old tin lizzy, do it till you're dizzy

Give it all ya got until you're put out of your misery

(Chorus)

Baby won't you do me, baby won't you do me....

Like you done before (huh huh)

Yes, I'm movin', Yes I'm movin'

Get ready for the big time

Get crazy on the moonshine

Yes, I'm movin', I'm really movin'

Sloe gin fizzy

Do it till you're dizzy

Give it all you got until you're put out of your misery

(Repeat Chorus)

"Hey, did you see that?" Mary Anne suddenly said, catching the attention of the room full of people who had gathered for a sort of birthday party, since it was her 19th birthday on this 22nd of November. She pointed out the movement in the girl's lips, along with the facial guestures, which seemed to go along with the song that was playing. The song ended, as well as the movement. She rewound the tape, and began playing it again. This time, everyone in the room watched in suprise as she continued to lip sync to the songs that were playing. Word quickly spread around the Acute care floor, which she had been moved to just the day before. Her shattered leg was then operated on, and the responses she gave to things and people around her became more frequent, and more exagerated. Soon, she was lip synking to all of the songs on all of the tapes that were there, and within days, was trying to talk. For the first two days, she refused to sleep, though doctors and her family tried everything to get her to. "I don't want to go back to that dark place", she kept saying. Within days, she asked a question that shocked her mother.

"Who is John?"

"John? I don't know. You knew a lot of Johns in high school."

"I'm in high school?"

"No, you're in college."

"Do I have a car?"

"You used to!" It was an effort to keep from both laughing and crying at the same time.

"John is in college."

"You remember college?"

"No. But I remember John. Who is John?"

Finaly it hit her. "You mentioned a friend in college named John Gray to me once. You called to say his car broke down and you were giving him a ride to get it fixed."

"I have a car?"

Her memory was swiss-cheesed. There were bits and fragments coming in, none of which made sense. Her mother asked if she rememberd the accident.

"You said someone was following you Friday. Did he cause this? Do you remember what his truck looked like? Or the truck that hit you?"

She thought hard. There was a blurry image. "Was it black?"

"No, it was white." She thought for a minute. "But there was a black truck parked on the side of the road to your left. Maybe you couldn't see what hit you because of that?"

It took several weeks, and all the doctors said she'd never remember the wreck, but bits & pieces of it slowly started to come back. Along with the memory of people. She insisted on her mother bringing all her books and notebooks from home. At the same time, another name came back to her. "Nichlas." She called for Nicholas for days, untill Jim finaly got his number from her phone book, called Nicholas' mother, and tracked him down, to tell him what had happened to her and that she was asking for him, almost constantly. She remembered almost nothing else. Not how to spell, or do even the most basic of tasks. She couldn't remember all the faces of the people from her church that came and went each day, or even her own uncle and cousines. But, one day, when being wheeled out of her room, she saw a familiar, tall figure walking down the hall in her direction.

"Nicholas!" Her weak, raspy voice called out to her long time friend and mentor, whom she'd never stopped loving. She seemed to draw in more energy from the visit, though he was rather uncomfortable, being a recluse and misfit, who rarely went out into public. She improved stedaly from that point, and soon just a couple of months after the wreck, was moved to the Re-Hab floor. Now she could begin to work on what she knew she had to do. John was a secret. That must have been why her mother didn't automaticaly know who he was. In one of her college notebooks, she found a phone number, with the name "John Gray", written in unfamilior handwriting. Then, she found a phone book in her room one day, and looked up the number for Gainesville College. All this was difficult to keep secret, as she had almost no time to herself. Plus, she was terrified to try to talk to this man that she knew she loved, but couldn't even remember clearly. She had no memory of college, or really anything past being a pre-teen, but there were glimpses going through her mind of a man that she couldn't see clearly, and sometimes, something about a large swimming pool. Finaly, one day, she knew she had to at least try. She called his number first, and heard a husky man's voice on an answering machine. "John? I don't really know how to say this. This is Erin. I was in a car accident in November, and I found your number in one of my notebooks. I can't remember anything, but I have a feeling you are very important to me. Please, if you can, come to see me at Northeast GA Medical center. Room 26. Visiting hours end at 9, so everyone else will be gone by then. Come here at 9, and I'll make sure you can get in." After her heart stopped pownding, she then called the college. She left the same message with them, hoping that he got at least one of them.

That night, after she alerted the nurses that someone might be coming at 9 pm, and that it was important they let him in, she waited in her wheelchair, brushing her hair, which was now parted on the right, rather than the left, so she could cover up the part that had been shaved. She watched as various people walked up and down the hall, hardly able to breathe. Suddenly, a tall man with extreamly long hair walked past her door, paused, looked at the number, and looked inside.

"John?" she asked quietly.

He walked in the door, towards her, and she pushed up on the armrests of her wheelchair, forcing herself to stand, so she could hug him.

"Oh, honey, be careful!" He held her up as she stood on shaky legs, arms wraped tightly around him. He wiped the tears from her eyes, and urged her to sit down again.

"I thought you were dead," he said, blinking back tears of his own.

"I'll always keep you guessing." She smiled. After a few minutes, she forced herself to her feet again, and sat in his lap, arm around his shoulders. As he kissed her, she had a sudden flash of a swimming pool again. They had been at the indoor, heated pool at the college, and when she wasn't looking, he wrapped his arms around her waist and jumped into the pool! "We were quite an item, weren't we?" she asked.

"Yes, we were." He paused, a pained look on his face. "I have something to tell you, and I don't quite know how." He took a breath. "Do you remember Mary?"

She paused... "I....I think so. There was.... some other woman, wasn't there?"

"Yes." He struggeled to find the words. "I don't know how to say this other than just to say it." He paused again. "When you dissapeard from school, I didn't know what to think. I didn't know if you were dead, or had run out on me, or something. I didn't know what to do. I know it probably wasn't the smart thing to do, but.... I'm sorry. I was upset... and... I went back to Mary."

She hugged him, and then kissed him gently. "It's ok. I understand."

"I never wanted to hurt you. You know that, don't you?"

"I know, my love. I know." She kissed him again, and touched his face softly. "All I want is for you to be happy. If she makes you happy, you need to go for it." Inside, she felt such loss, but she had to let him go. It was better to let him go now than to be dumped by him later on. She wasn't the woman he'd fallen in love with, as much as she wanted to be, and he deserved so much more. "I'll always love you, John. Remember that." She placed her forhead against his and closed her eyes.

"There was a song that I kept listening to, while I've been here. Several, actualy. "November Rain was one, but there was another that somehow felt like it must have been our song. Have you heard this?" She held up a tape, labeled "Bed of Roses", then placed it in the tape player.

Tears filled his eyes. "Yes. That and November Rain. Those were our songs."

She stood up. "Dance with me," she said and held out her arms.

Bed Of Roses (Bon Jovi)

Sitting here wasted and wounded

At this old piano

Trying hard to capture

The moment this morning i don't know

'cause a bottle of vodka

Is still lodged in my head

And some blond gave me nightmares

I think she's still in my bed

As i dream about movies

They won't make of me when i'm dead

With an ironclad fist i wake up and

French kiss the morning

While some marching band keeps

Its own beat in my head

While we're talking

About all of the things that i long to believe

About love and the truth and

What you mean to me

And the truth is baby you're all that i need

I want to lay you on a bed of roses

For tonite i sleep on a bed on nails

I want to be just as close as the holy ghost is

And lay you down on bed of roses

Well i'm so far away

That each step that i take is on my way home

A king's ransom in dimes i'd given each night

Just to see through this payphone

Still i run out of time

Or it's hard to get through

Till the bird on the wire flies me back to you

I'll just close my eyes and whisper,

Baby blind love is true

I want to lay you down on a bed of roses

For tonite i sleep on a bed on nails

I want to be just as close as the holy ghost is

And lay you down on bed of roses

The hotel bar hangover whiskey's gone dry

The barkeeper's wig's crooked

And she's giving me the eye

I might have said yeah

But i laughed so hard i think i died

When you close your eyes

Know i'll be thinking about you

While my mistress she calls me

To stand in her spotlight again

Tonite i won't be alone

But you know that don't

Mean i'm not lonely i've got nothing to prove

For it's you that i'd die to defend

I want to lay you down on a bed of roses

For tonite i sleep on a bed on nails

I want to be just as close as the holy ghost is

And lay you down on bed of roses

Thanks for this personal view and update. At least people now know we're really doing this, & it's no joke!

I enjoy reading your blog. Very personal & heartfelt.

Thanks, guys. I really needed this. Terry & haven't seen each other since Feb., so I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

HUGS, everybody!

Yeah... poor Graham. I keep wishing there was some way I could help out with problems like that, so that some of the PM's might be directed to me.... But I just don't know how that would be possible.

Do YOU Yahoo?

Thanks, David. At least I know I wasn't alone. It seems to be fixed now.

So someone is out there.

I'm here, too, David. Just can't get the main board to let me post!

Hmmmm.  Interesting.  Good Luck.

Thank you.

Good luck! Looking forward to reading it!

Thanks, Graham. I would have gotton something started in here, but Jason was asking me if I had ideas for a new movie-progect, & I pitched this same story idea to him. I'm waiting for him to get back to me before I start it here. I made that intro post about a day before he & I started to talk about other progects, and this idea came to mind.

Also, I'm a bit nervous... About the subject material. You know what they say, sometimes, the best stories are just right in front of you!

Testing Show All smilies.    

WOO-HOO! They finaly work!

Your daughter is beautiful!

Oh, and I love your cats and lizards and spider!

Thank you!

Well, thank you for being so supportive. Though I have to say.... I don't realy feel like I'm trying anything. I feel like I'm right where you are...immobilized by fear. Fear of failure, fear of my disfunctional family, etc. The only thing I've ever actualy TRIED is this whole script writing thing, and that's just because it was thrust upon me. Movie Maker came on with this idea, and no one stepped up to the plate, so I did. First time for everything, I guess.

Thanks, Celt.

Yes, this has been something that has angered and frustrated me for most of my life. We can succeed through mediocrity (please forgive my spelling, in a hurry) as long as we aspire to do the mediocer. But, let someone want to do something creative...something beautiful, that will enrich the world....and you have to be PERFECT, as well as a magor ass-kisser, to ever even get acknowledged!

Watch this space.....

HeeeHeeeheee.....another excuse to use this! :voodoo:

Hey....I LOVE pictures in the snow! That's one of the most beautiful settings for photography!

Oh, well..... Different strokes.....

THE SINGING DETECTIVE (a failed movie, need to finish listening to the commentary)

BIG FISH (liked it, but probably will never watch this Tim Burton movie again)

THE BURIED SECRET OF M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN (it's crap)

BORN TO DEFENSE (worst Jet Li movie I have ever seen)

Those four top the list. More about THE SINGING DETECTIVE in another entry in this blog.

The Singing Detective I've never heard of, but the title doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in its quality...

Big Fish I already have. I liked it, too.

The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan.... never heard of it. Does it suck as bad as "The Village"?

Never heard of Born To Defence or Jet Li.

TTYL....

ADD? I never thought of myself as ADD. Just someone with very little self-esteem, and a terrible people-pleaser.... So when someone doesn't support me, and heaven forbid....TELL me "You should" or "You shouldn't" do whatever it is.... I just cave. :mabiuswoz'ere:

Thanks for being supportive. I'm going to start another thread on this subject, and maybe a bunch of us can start supporting each other.

What are they? Maybe you can dump 'em on me!

Just starting a DVD collection.

So far, I have..........

The X-Files, Seasons 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Millennium Seasons 1 and 2 offical releases, plus all 3 seasons of the DVD-R's from the Japanese lazer-disks.

Aerosmith "Bigs Ones You Can Look At"

LIVE DVD extra from their latest CD

"Twin Peaks", the complete 1st season.

Don't have any that I hate yet....

David...

I know you were being funny. I was just being playful back. (*wink*)

What certain something are you looking for?

You're weird.

Hey, if you build it, they will come!

I'm sorry, David. I've asked myself very similar questions in the past. Why people have to create these little "dramas" I'll never fully understand. Yes...there IS a psychological/spiritual reason, but it just isn't much concellation, is it.

Hugs to you, my friend.

Ditto. Any kind of being FORCED into a job is unthinkable.....but THIS....?

This is beyond words.

I wouldn't want to read the news anymore, either.

Kinda...yeah...LOL It's still unfocused, as of yet. Not realy any clear "theme". That's why I admire yours! LOL Mine is a mish-mash of personal stuff and that self-help thing that I thought would be helpful (God knows I need it!), but then, as you pointed out, I saw it was a bit too "Selfisophical". LOL

That sounds wonderful! I had no idea we had this in common! Such a pitty we don't live closer to each other. We could colaberate on projects. I'm just now getting into this.... And feel weird about a lot of it.... But that's another story for another day.

I know this sounds conceeted...but it would be fun to model for you!