Remember Me in Blue

By Dennis Lowery

One of my personal projects in development--planned for publication in 2013.

A story of how a death led to saving a life.

Excerpt from the development draft:

She fought the mortal coldness of a soul without hope; it lapped around her, rising higher. “What to do… what to do!” she screamed inside her head. It hadn't even been a matter of love, at least for him. The shock that came with realizing that she was on her own in this numbed her even more than the cold wind flailing the station platform.

She glanced around… so many people that seemed to have no place or purpose; they drooped and shuffled as if the gusts shoved them from here to there. Others moving with clear direction—clearly they had jobs to go to or the prospect of one that made them move so steadily or stand so firm with shoulders squared and head up. There were children, too, many homeless and abandoned by their parents—left to shift for themselves. She noticed one bright-haired girl, coatless in a once-bright blue dress as she shivered from person to person, a trembling tray of apples to offer them, “Apple, Sir?... Apple, Ma’am?” No takers, though and she watched her smile dip and then struggle to rise as the girl bravely approached the man next to her. “Trains coming,” she thought, glancing down the track, as the sound grew and people started to press together ready to board and escape the bitter wind. As if giving it one last try; the little girl lifted her tray to the man who not deigning to see her brusquely pushed by causing her to stumble and fall from the platform. The train’s screech covered her scream and that of the little girl as the engine’s steel wheels swallowed the girl spitting shreds of red-dampened blue fabric to the side of the rails. In the cold silence looking away from the girl’s body she saw an apple at her feet. Stooping she picked it up gently, as if cradling the girl to ease her pain, and as she stood, though not clearly formed, the seed was planted for what she must do for the life she carried within.

Story Premise:

An unwedded young woman who finds herself pregnant in a time when society would condemn and ostracize her witnesses a tragic event that changes the course of her life and that of the child she carries. Instead of secretly having an abortion she decides to have the child and to raise it no matter the repercussions.