WEP: Gone With The Wind

 

Write...Edit...Publish (also known as WEP), has given us their first writing challenge for 2023: To write a story inspired by that classic novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind, which is set in the tumultuous times of the Civil War. My story takes a slightly different point of view.

Gone With The Wind

An Old Man remembers his life in the south.

The old man leaned back in his rocking chair. Lightning bugs flickered in the early dusk, little pinpoints of yellow light winking on and off. “Don’t know why you want to talk to me. Don’t like to remember the old days.” He folded his hands, work-grimed and gnarled with age. His lips twisted. “Don’t like to remember them days at all.”

The young reporter sat on the stoop of the small cabin. “They told me at the high school you are the only one left. I was hoping you’d tell me about those days for my paper.”

“You mean back before, when I was a slave?” He grunted. “Weren’t so bad most of the time.” He leaned over and coughed, a deep, hacking that came up from his bones. “They put us in the fields. Dawn to dark, we worked. I don’t know much about them coming over on the ships. That was way before my time. But I was told how it were. Dark and closed up in the holds. Not enough to eat. Then, they was put up on the market. Nobody knew what they was going to do. I didn’t come along until much later, but they told me not much has changed. We was slaves.” He fingered the Bible in his lap.

The girl waited, for any recollection he would share.

“I remember my wife like yesterday. She were so nice. They brought her in from another plantation. She were pregnant, but I didn’t care. We jumped over the broomstick, and the baby, he was mine.”

The old man was quiet for a bit. The rocking chair creaked as it swayed back and forth.

“They say we got beat. That happened. We all have scars of one kind or another. I never got to work in the big house. Cotton was my master. That and the overseer.” He held out his hands. Even in the failing light of dusk, she could see the marks on his hands.

“During harvest, we began at dawn and worked half the night, filling our bags and then toting them to be weighed. If we didn’t pick enough, we got whipped. If we picked too much, they wanted the same the next day.”

He cleared his throat. “Still, wasn’t the hardest. The hardest was when they took her away. Her and the boy, sold off somewheres. Don’t know why. For a while, I didn’t give a damn. Some of the boys, we run. Some got caught and hung up in a tree, but I made it. Found work here. Got this place after a while.” He shrugged. “The rest don’t matter. It’s all gone with the wind, but I still miss my Cherie. And my boy.”

455 words.

Full critique acceptable. 

AFTERWORD: I barely remember seeing the movie, Gone With the Wind, sometime in the early 1960’s, but I remember devouring the book back then and being enthralled by the love story of Rhett and Scarlett as well as appalled by the horrors of the Civil War and slavery. 

I prepped for writing this short story by finding a copy of GWTW. A prologue written by well-loved author Pat Conroy, reminded me that the love story was only part of Margaret Mitchell’s intention. Immediately controversial, GWTW was a barely concealed love story about the Old South itself, the way things were, and the way of life many white people in the South wanted back. Anger about the Civil War and the changes it brought resonates even today. 

I'm not quite ready to reread GWTW, but I hope my story  honors those who survived. Maybe there’s a different way to read Rhett Butler saying, “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.”

“No day dawns for the slave, nor is it looked for. It is all night — night forever.” Slavery in the American South. Constitutional Rights Foundation. https://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/slavery-in-the-american-south

Write...Edit...Publish encourages writers to post in response to a prompt and to read what others have written. Sharing our writing and commenting helps us all grow as writers. To visit other WEP writers, here are your links:

Email Denise or another team member if you have more questions:

den.covey@gmail.com  yolandarenee@hotmail.com nilabose306b@gmail.com

1.	Denise Covey	6.	J Lenni Dorner	11.	Roland R Clarke
2.	Yolanda Renee	7.	dolorah@booklover	12.	Pat Garcia
3.	Nilanjana Bose	8.	N. R. Williams	13.	Damyanti Biswas
4.	Olga Godim	9.	Jemi Fraser	14.	Beth Camp
5.	Sonia Dogra	10.	Roland Yeomans