Writing Prompt — Fearing The Past
Writing Prompt: What if the Past Catches Up With You? Would you be ready for what the past offers you? — Warren Brown
#DEP #dancingelephantspress #prompt
Feasting on Writing Prompt: What if the Past Catches Up With You? By the very talented and innovative Warren Brown, he asked, “Would you be ready for what the past offers you?”
“I don’t understand,” Lois Mc Calley, the Physical Therapist at Thames Recovery Center for the Elderly, recovering from various health issues, said to a group of females sitting in the Rec Room. “How can you be the oldest of the group, yet you are the healthiest and happiest? And your husband of more than forty years is dead.”
Six pairs of eyes, stared her down as she stared back at five females between the ages of sixty-nine and seventy-eight years old.
“I live in the present that I created in the past,” Clair Vaugh said, biting into a McIntosh apple she took from a glass dish in the center of the large oval-shaped, metal table.
“You created a future from your past?” Lois asked, staring at Clair in knotted brows.
“Isn’t that what all of us do?” Clair asked.
“Not all of us,” a heart filled with regret said. “Some of us are just living without a plan.”
Clair smiled, then said, “When you are young, you don’t worry about your past, because it stays where it is.”
“So, you are saying that as we age, our past moves up to the present?” Lois questioned.
“Smart girl,” Clair complements, taking another bite.
“So, all of the rotten things I did, . . .I mean the wrong things I did will come looking for me?” Lois asked, a weird/terrified look on her face, her head swaying left to right while staring at the other five females, who were on mute.
“Ask them,” Clair points to the silent five.
“Don’t judge us because you live a perfect life,” one of the females lashed out angrily.
“No one’s life is perfect,” Clair notified. “I go back into my past for strength and a better understanding of life and living.”
“You mean you don’t regret any part of your life?” Lois asked.
“Every human has regrets in their lives,” Clair informs.
“You don’t act as if you do,” one of the elderly females said in reflection.
“You can’t love the destination but hate the journey or the route. When you do that, you open the door to regrets,” Clair explained.
“So, you are saying that there is nothing in your past you want to go back to change?” Lois questioned.
“Even if I could, I wouldn’t, because the wrong roads, took me to the right ones. And what I learned on my journey, I used to improve my life,” Clair enlightened.
“There is nothing in your past that you are worried about?” another one of the females asked.
“I think every human on the planet has something in their past, that they would love to stay in the past,” Clair said, her eyes on all six females.
“Does that include you?” Lois quests.
“Like I said,” Clair stated. “I had to go on the wrong road, to get to the right one. And with lessons learned, I managed to live a good life.”
“Your life is that good that you can handle the hell of your past?” another one of the five elderly females demands.
“I was often called Miss Perfect. The ones that think that way weren’t aware that all I was doing was setting a better example for my generation and those who know me to follow,” Lois elaborates.
“But how can you tell that your mistakes might haunt you in the future?” Lois questioned.
Clair sends a smile from her heart to her face and elaborates, “I know life and I love history. Plus, I am aware, and I study the lives of everyone around me. I am conscious of how they live and I see their decisions played out in the consequences and rewards life returns to them. All of us, our lives are manuals. Take the time to read some of those you know.”
“So, you take the time to think of the consequences before you are stupid?” Lois asked.
“No,” Clair answers. “I just read the lives of all of the people I know. Witnessing the outcome of their actions, choices, and decisions, doing the right thing wasn’t hard for me. I am aware that for being bad, life will punish me. For doing good, humans will penalize me.”
“So, either way, all of us must pay the piper,” one of the five females relates.
“Yeah,” Clair agrees. “But you can’t bribe Life or beg for forgiveness. You can with humans.”
“But you still must pay the piper,” the same female repeats.
Her index finger close to her face, in deep thought for a minute, Clair said, “We are not in control of life as many of us think. For payback, whom do you fear the most? Life or humans?”
“Life!” They said in unison.
“You don’t fear the humans you know?” Lois asked.
“It’s what we don’t know that we fear,” someone said.
“But you are alive. You are old, how can you not know life?” Lois asked.
Silence spoke briefly, then someone said, “Not all of us are alive in our lives,” a familiar voice notified.
“You are saying that some of us are living but aren’t aware of what we are doing?” Lois quests.
“And some of us who are aware, manage to do what must be done,” Clair threw in. “And we end up prepared for whatever our past sends.”
“Damn, you’re right!” Lois cried out. “Because when you do the right thing, you don’t have to redo, rearrange, resend, reset, or rechange anything. And that removes many regrets!”
The eyes of the other five females popped, and one of them said, “So that’s why you are always happy. You aren’t afraid of your past!”
“Says who?” Lois asked, staring into six pairs of eyes. “I do have things I wished to stay back, but when they come, I am not afraid.”
“Why?” Lois demands.
“Because everything I do, I do for a damn good reason,” Clair answered. “My life sits on reasons.”
“So doing things for a good reason limits your regrets too?” One of the elderly females asked.
Nodding in confirmation, Clair enlightens, “And I allow humans to give me reasons to make my decisions.”
“So doing the right things for a good reason, lessens your regrets ah?” One of the females asked in deep thought.
“Life showed me that everything and everyone is connected invisibly. So, changing one thing changes everything,” Clair reminds them.
“So, regretting the bad will take away the good too,” another one of the elderly females shared.
Clair nods, “Thank God none of us can go back to change anything.”
“Damn!” Lois said. “I need to start living better so I won’t be afraid of my past and have no reason to want to go back!”
Clair explained, “I am aware that my actions, choices, and decisions move from behind me, to in front of me as I get older. That gives me reasons to regret and or fear my past. I believe that if I live my life with reason while doing the right thing, honest and good ones too I will have almost no regrets that can disable my future, preventing me from enjoying my old age.”
Six pairs of eyes, hearts, and souls went back deeper inside of them, fighting regrets.
“So, right now, I can handle whatever my past sends my way!”
Our lives are our decisions, and our decisions are our lives. Your past is coming for you. Only death can deny it payment. Live a good life, one with good decisions, reasons, love, and kindness too. So when the past comes, let it pay you, instead of you paying it!
Live a good life. Make amends if you have to, and don’t fear your past.
Thanking Warren Brown for today’s brain exercise. I enjoyed it. Please, share your fears of the past. Let us know if you owe your past, or it owes you.
Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoy it and will savor more from some talented writers on this platform, whose links are below.
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