This prompt made me think of my mother. Last year she went on a cruise with Holland America. They were painting the walls, doing construction on the ship.
All this gave her an allergic reaction. Not wanting to admit responsibility for her condition, the ship's doctor told her she had a virus. He quarantined my mother on board as a result.
My mother ended up losing much of her hearing due to this quarantine.
I didn't want to write about this experience, but I needed to release some of my anger over what had happened. The words 'allergic reaction' and 'holiday' triggered this checked rage.
The button gave the whole thing a weird twist.
The moment she came into close proximity with the button, her skin began to blister.
She should have known better than to tell the cruise doctor.
He didn’t want to admit anything aboard the ship was responsible for her condition.
“Oh, no, Madam has a caught some sort of virus!” He nodded with vigorous enthusiasm, not giving her a moment to argue. “We’ll have to be quarantined, until it goes away.”
Idiot. The ship was what was causing her illness.
Or rather the button was.
She was too tired to say any of this to the doctor. All she could do was lay back on the cot.
From time to time, she peered through the window at the port which had been denied her.
I’m paying for this, she thought with growing resentment. She was supposed to be seeing the rest of the world in the little time left to her. Taking a comfortable hotel with her, while she visited the places left she wanted to catch a glimpse of.
Instead, she was trapped with the button.
She stared at it, stuck in the middle of the wall, a jarring decoration which didn’t go with the wall paper.
No, it didn’t belong in the wall. It should have been on a woman’s coat, fastening the opening at the neck to keep the cold out.
She could almost imagine the woman who wore it. An anxious, middle aged secretary or a journalist, with dark hair severely pinned under a hat. Underpaid, always in a hurry, surrounded by petty monetary concerns.
Any one of them could have dragged her down.
How had she managed to go on a cruise? Such a woman would never have the time. She’d be too busy, rushing about, unable to get a moment of rest.
Would she have even known how to rest, if she was given the time to do so?
She smiled, acknowledging the parallel between the imaginary woman and herself.
She’d never had much time to relax. It was only too easy for relaxation to turn into boredom. Or depression.
Too many friends and family had been lost to time or left for other parts in the world. Activity enabled her to avoid her loneliness.
Even now, she was trying to come up with a story to occupy her mind with. A story for this button.
She allowed her mouth to relax and closed her eyes.
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