Stories Of Life .......

Peer Pressure

PEER PRESURE ......

We live with it every day of our lives from the moment of our birth but maybe not right then but when, we get to be the little person we are going to be to become. Then it's heard said from Family or members of the family "Oh your lovely, but be like your brother/ sister" etc or "Why can't you take a leaf out of your brother's book."

I'm going to loosely use either male/ female here in how I say it so it can relate to fact/ fiction neither male or female person real or not. It's just about the Title of this piece.

Then we join in that Special moment we all live for or rather our Parents plus Everyone who knows you exist, live it through us. Even our older siblings would scare us of them being older had already been through it before us, our First Day in what seems foever to be in School. We have gone through the first stage the 'Sand Pit' stage the first time you met your peers. Though to you they are little friends you make one day and don't like the next day. There you are taught and told the big word of 'Sharing' that big red truck, you only you has played with since being in that place . Now you have to share with twenty or less little 'Friends' who now want that big red truck or maybe one in that to you frightening crowd looking with envy at your truck will take it off you with the word "Mine" and you give it to that little friend because it's not your truck any more. Peer presure has started young and so it goes on through the life that you live, you grow up you are an adult now. But that child you was still remembers that red truck and the feeling when you lost your hold on it, forever. Because you never played with it again even when it sat alone in the sand pit just as alone you were feeling for when you went to play with it. One glance from the one who said "Mine" would stop you touching it's wooden red wheels that squeaked when they turned, peer pressure again. Into Adulthood you always have pressures from work from homelife, but now it's a competition to be the best to make that sale to make more money than the other person to show you've made it into the World with a better house a better job than the other person because now you understand a bit more about what Peer Pressure is it's Powerful and you use your own Peer Pressure of someone new someone to look up to You for themselves to think "I want to be like Him/ Her I can be it I can do it too."

And so it goes on and on in your life, because your still wanting to hold your precious red truck again and even though you're aged Eighty three. Living in a residential home with like minded person's who now show you "That's not your chair, Harry sits there." Peer Pressure again even in your older life, because everyone has their own place to sit and you best learn where yours is very quickly. Even if your chair doesn't face the sun, to feel it's warmth on your face again even through a glass window because you are pushed into a spot to be left sitting there in your wheelchair by the unfeeling staff member who wanted a smoke before listening to your babble because after your stroke that's all you can do now is be like this and watch in envy as they walk about and talk to each other. And that chair that 'Belongs' to the person named Harry who doesn't always sit in it "It's too hot to sit there" you have heard him say to the other people who gather around him. Because right next to His Chair sitting there all alone on the table is a big red wooden truck, that the wheels squeak when they turn. But no one touches the truck not even the Staff or the Cleaner who dusts arround it but never touching the truck so it is covered in decades of dust always has and always will. Then you see Harry come into the lounge a few say hello but all watch him pick up the coveted truck into his arms not caring the dust going on his clothes, as he passes you he nods a hello that's all you get all you ever have had off him all your life as Harry is your Brother.

And the biggest Peer Pressure you have ever had was off him in fact that's how you knew what it was to use Peer Pressure on other's when Harry took away the red truck and said "Mine" but one day Harry I will live and you won't and on that day the red truck will be "Mine" and I too will sit in your chair and feel the sun on my face and it won't ever be 'Too hot' to sit there. But also I too will carry the red truck off to my bed as you do now as I watch you go in scruffy slippers and a dressing gown I bought you once when you had to go into a home to be looked after by nursing staff. The same home I insisted on going into by writing it down on paper one word only that word was 'Harry' my poor Family, son and daughter's all thought it was you I wanted to be with. But No I wanted be close to my red truck to wait my turn in playing with it again. Now I'm dressed in black a cup of tea is set beside me on the table outside it's a very sunny day the blind is pulled down slightly to avoid the glare the new staff member is young and very timid but she reads my wants on the pad and does what I ask of her I wrote 'Leave' and the blind goes back up the sun hits my face and I feel it's heat burn into me I point towards the table and she picks up the cup of tea and offers it towards me I shake my head vigorously and point again. She sees where I point towards this time she sees the right thing and hands me the very clean red wooden truck the repainted redness of it stands out against the black I wore for your funeral Harry my tears on my face they think they are for my loss of a Wonderful Brother but no it's for when I hold again my beautiful red truck I have waited to hold for the last eight years.

The red truck dusted every day is put back into it's glass cabinet in the lounge for Everyone to see it from a distance, but once a week there is a name raffle drawn. And whoever the person is they are allowed to hold the truck for an hour or two and a Sand Pit is brought in with loads of papers on the floor in case as that person plays hard and rough with the red truck in the sand.

This was left in her Will the Conditions she had stipulated one more was the truck was never again to be painted to let it's condition to deteriorate with age and time until it could never be played with again. Then it was to be burned to ash and those ashes spread over where her ashes had gone to, some years before.

And her Peer pressure was over but the red wooden truck whose wheels still would have been still heard to squeak if the now older staff member had not added a bit of oil to the wheels to stop that creepy squeak.

It is said late at night in the Residential Home that sometimes you see from the corner of your eye something in black clothing there one moment gone the next you doubt yourself it wasn't there at all just your imagination playing tricks on you.

The night staff always mention this more than the day staff it seems especially if they are young and new and very timid to be on the night duty for the first time they say they DON'T just see something in black but they hear wooden wheels squeaking along the carpeted flooring in the lounge and on the table in what would in day time be a very sunny spot to sit awhile.

There on an empty pad forever there left untouched by any living person is a picture of an old red truck being in a sand pit, no one admits to doing the drawing but the pad is always empty in daylight but in the night a drawing appears on the pad. And something in black is seen in the shadows sitting in a chair a wheelchair to be precisely right. But only if you are quick enough to see or she let's you see her willingly with the red truck on her lap or sometimes being seen being puled along by an invisible string.

The chair by the window no one will sit in it, as it's too hot to sit in the bright sun. Or rather because that's the chair Florrie sat in it, no one is allowed to anyway it was in her Will.

This story like most began to be on Peer Pressure and how it affects Us All in Life.

But has ended as being about it's Second Title thought about at the end of the story.

The Red Wooden Truck ......