Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Iris (04/17/25)
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TITLE: Move Over, Hallmark! | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
04/23/25 -
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As the bewildered young woman screamed in pain, she heard a man’s deep voice. Then she realized he was lying a few feet away.
“I’m calling 9-1-1,” he declared with the quiet authority of a sensible person.
When she put her hand to her head she could feel a trickle of something she hoped was merely falling from the sky and not oozing from her.
Patty moaned and mumbled, “Great idea. Tell them to hurry!”
In a blur of sirens, assessments, and decisions, she was whisked away to the local emergency room but had no idea what happened to the fellow with the mellow voice.
After she was treated and wrapped in the warmth of several blankets, her zany mother suddenly entered the room as if a bear were chasing her. Always direct, and very often too funny for words, she demanded answers.
“Oh, my! Patty-Pie, What in the world whomped you in the eye?”
Patty did not giggle at the goofy rhyme as she removed the icepack for a few seconds to expose the huge abrasion and purple bruise. Her boisterous mother flinched but stayed silent and waited.
“I think it was an umbrella.”
Mom took a deep breath and regained her predictable momentum.
“Was a human attached or was it just flying through the air?”
The younger woman wasn’t amused.
“From what I heard, it was a man. We collided with such force he too was knocked down. He yelled at first, so apparently he was hurt.”
Release from the hospital was finally completed with an appointment to see an ophthalmologist the next day. Her mother, always loaded with a surplus of amusing responses for any calamity, hovered over her only adult daughter with plenty of chicken soup, TLC, and debatable advice.
Patty’s three teenage brothers were impressed with the swollen multi-colored contusions and had a list of ridiculous stories that she could tell about taking care of business, as they called it.
The next morning, Patty waited in an exam room along with her over-doting parent. The nurse delivered the standard response. “Dr. Rod will be right with you.”
“Oh, sure,” her mother whined, just as the door opened and a tall, handsome, young physician appeared. He seemed to be limping and had a bandage above one eye.
“Well," he chuckled, “Aren’t we a pair?”
Patty recognized the deep voice and gasped, “You ran into me!”
“Let’s just say my umbrella did. I was simply holding on.”
Many return visits, tests, and restorative medical interventions later, Dr. Rodney McConnell asked Patricia Jones if she would please be his date for the fancy annual Ophthalmology gala. He promised an evening of excellent food, easy dancing to a famous orchestra, and a minimum of speeches.
Patty’s brothers teased her unmercifully with every ounce of ribbing they could muster, followed by raucous laughter at their cleverness.
“You mean he’s taking you to the Eye-Ball?”
Although quiet, like her father, she could hold her own with them.
“Leave me alone. Y’all are getting on my last optic nerve!”
When Rod arrived dressed to the tuxedo-nines for the swanky occasion, the boys were impressed to find out he had been a star football player for the Navy and currently taught Sunday School plus a course in ophthalmic anatomy at the local college.
Her mother couldn’t help but contribute one last corny groaner (vitreous humor if you will).
“Oh, Patty! Maybe you could be one of his pupils!” All eyes rolled.
A year later, as additive rom-com stories are wont to do, things progressed to an engagement. When asked what he initially noticed about his beautiful fiancée, Rod replied with love and appreciation.
“Her right iris was the most fascinating shade of blue. I figured the other one would be equally as clear and alluring.”
That was years ago. They often jog together now, but side-by-side since opposite directions didn’t work out so well.
Her mother claims she knew they would see eye-to-eye, no matter the color of Patricia’s irises. Then, of course, she felt compelled to venture a suggestion for a name for her first-born granddaughter.
No surprise. It’s also the term for a gorgeous, stately, purplish-blue flower.
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Proverbs 4:25 (NLT)
Look straight ahead and fix your eyes on what lies before you.
Song of Solomon 4:9 (NLT)
You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes…
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