Just whoring out some of my work from english class. This puppy is the result of a parallel literature study on Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. I decided to tell the story from Theresa Carmody's point of view. Her character plays Frank McCourt's first love but their relationship is short-lived due to Theresa's illness. So without further ado...
Consumed
(Angela’s Ashes as told by Theresa Carmody)
I know that Mam is crying tonight. The house is moaning and groaning, not havin’ the stomach to withstand the rain and wind, and I can still hear her stifled sobs. I can’t sleep for all the pain in my chest, and the sounds of the house and Mam are making me think of dyin’.
Frank came by again today and all these thoughts of dyin’ are making me think of his family and his brothers and sister dyin’ and leaving him and his Mam and Da. I don’t want that to happen to me mother and father, but I think they’ve been expecting it for some time now. I can hear in the way Mam has been crying that she knows I’m not long for the world and sometimes when she thinks I’m sleeping, she prays to the Blessed Virgin to save my soul and take her instead of me. I don’t like it when she does that, it makes me think of the sad, desperate way that Mrs. O’Connell’s face looked after her son got sick and died. I hope my mother never looks the way Mrs. O’Connell looked, even if I do go off and leave her.
I saw Frank riding past the house this morning on his bike and I couldn’t help but envy him for it. I would have liked nothing better than to take a ride on that bike through the lanes of Limerick and let the wind blow cold on my feverish face. But even as the thought enters my mind I can hear the cough rising in my chest and soon I’m choking on it and I can hardly breathe for all the blood and mucus that rises from my lungs. This coughing wears me out and I can hardly stand for ten minutes without getting the nauseous feelin’ in my gut. Mother’s crying has stopped and I can hear her shuffling out of her chair by the fire and sliding her feet into the slippers Da bought for her last Christmas. She is coming down the hall now to my room and I close my eyes and pretend I’m sleeping. I don’t know why I do it; maybe I just don’t want to see the sad, desperate face on my mother.
The door groans on its hinges as Mam peeks around the frame to peer down at me lyin’ on the bed. I can’t see the look on her face because my eyes are shut but surely God can see her and maybe He’ll feel sorry for us. I don't think he will though because He didn’t feel sorry for Mrs. O’Connell and Mrs. McCourt and their babies, but I pray anyway because I have to believe.
Mam crosses the room and lays her hand on my forehead—not in the way she usually does to check for fever, but like she just wanted to make sure I was still hers. I can hear her press her hand to her mouth and then she’s gone and the creaky old door is closed and I’m alone. I’ve only been pretendin’ to sleep but I can hardly open my eyes again from the sadness and the fatigue, so I just keep them closed and drift off.
***
Frank is riding up the path on his bike again. Mam is out and Da is workin’ and we have the house to ourselves. He sits by my bed and holds my hand. For a long time it is silent and the air is bitterly cold, and I think of how nice Frank looks in his work uniform and how proud it makes me feel.
Are you strong enough to stand? he asks.
Only if you carry me.
When he bends to lift me from the bed, I can smell the cold air on his jacket. My heart instantly aches to feel the outside and I know that whenever I smell the autumn winds, I’ll think of Frank and his uniform jacket. I wonder if he’s takin’ me outside and I decide that I’ll love him forever if he does.
I just want to show ye somethin’, he explains.
Are we goin’ outside?
We are.
Is it someplace I know?
‘Tis.
He struggles to carry me down the stairs—I think I might be taller than him—and I bless him a million times for it. At the bottom of the stairs I start to cough and out comes the blood and the mucus and the heavy breathing, but I don’t mind it so much anymore. I can see that Frank is upset. I try to let my head stop spinning and I tell him I’ll be fine.
But I can see that he is looking at my eyes. I haven’t seen myself in a mirror for weeks but I can feel the sickness sinking my face and suckin’ the life from my flesh. He is scared and so am I.
Where did you want to take me? I remind him.
With my mother’s sad face on, he helps me through the door and it is rainin’ outside. The River Shannon is vibrating with the drops of water fallin’ on its surface. Everything is so green I can hardly stand the beauty of it and a light misty fog is risin’ from the ground while the heavens pour down from above.
We sit down right there in the doorway as I can hardly stand now from all the coughing. He holds me around the shoulders and if I hadn’t already decided to love him back in my room I would have done so then. I know how the other boys think of me and I know they would tease poor Frank right out of Limerick if they saw him here with me now and I feel very proud again. The mist from the rain blows against my face and I feel as if a great pressure has been taken off my body. I pray for a minute that heaven will look and feel just like a doorway in Limerick, Ireland during a rain shower.
We are there for an hour, two hours, three hours and for a long while I do nothin’ but cough my lungs dry and think that consumption is a perfect word for it. I ask Frank what he wanted to show me.
Just this, he says. I though it might be peaceful for you.
‘Tis.
And for now I am consumed by the way I feel about life and Frank and my family and Ireland and I think I am ready to die now. It won’t be long—a week or two at best. My mother will have the sad look and my father will hang the black mourning curtains at the windows. Frank will not ride up to the house anymore and the green couch in the parlor will most likely die from loneliness. The flames will consume my body and the earth will consume the ashes, but I know now what it is to be consumed by life and love and I won’t have it any other way. I have a full and heavy heart and I am bursting now with the joy of it and I know I will never have this again while I live. But I’ve had it and I know that its more than some will ever have, consumption or no. In this moment I have lived a true and completed life.
I am consumed.
2 days ago
