Words for Wednesday (on Thursday)

Words for Wednesday is a weekly meme with words or picture prompts given bloggers are encouraged to make what they can of them.

This month (October) Cindi is providing the prompts

And here’s how I used the ones for this week

~ ~ ~ ~

Tom and Tim 5 – Tom recalls a tragedy

The town was slowly recovering from the loss of Mr T. He was so well known in the area the local paper had recorded that as well as local residents, family and friends, the amount of workers attending from various stations, cattle yards and the nearby slaughterhouse had caused the funeral home to overflow on to the street and it was the best send off anyone had had for many a year.

Even though it hurt, Tom smiled through his grief as he read the obituaries written about a man who had been like father to him.  Turning the page he noticed the photo of the recent lightning storm and his mind wandered back to that time in his life when he’d gone bush, gone upcountry, leaving his mother in Tim’s care, hoping his brother would be able to cope.

He had witnessed those dramatic scenes of a sky filled with huge great bolts of static electricity when he was all alone filled with melancholy and grief trying to get over the shock of his beautiful Vera’s violent death.

Vera, the love of his life, had worked in the laboratory at the slaughterhouse. It was an accident the authorities reported. Unseasonal storms had flooded the building, associated gales had damaged some electric cabling. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise Tom felt the company’s poor maintenance schedule was to blame, Vera who was electrocuted during the clear up, had previously mentioned tingling sensations in her hands and arms when opening doors.

Out there in the outback each night he’d gone to sleep with the words – ‘as well as murdering animals in my town they murder people – running through his mind’.

He so missed Vera’s laugh, he missed the way she would amuse him with a sneaky kiss, he longed to experience that thrilling sensation of desire lost to him forever.

Calling home one day Tim let slip that mother was ailing mentally, he’d found her out in the drive complaining about ruts deep enough to be called ravines and if Tom didn’t come home to fix them she’d throw herself down them. Then Tim (who had been on the maintenance team at the slaughterhouse) let it be known if Tom didn’t come back soon there’d be another murder in the town.

~ ~ ~ ~

Previous episodes – Tom And Tim 1 – 2 – 3 – 4