The Misfortune of Molly the Murmurer
Molly is an excessive worrier. She worries about the things going on in extended family, the decisions that will be made at work, whether she's good enough, and that her toddler is going to somehow go through unnecessary pain if she swallows a bug or breathes in the fragrance from someone's air freshener.
What Molly doesn't know, however, is that a chance encounter with someone is going to flip her world upside down. Molly's response to the stranger is a test of faith, essentially, and her decision to respond out of fear and denial of a higher power at work in the world will send her into a living prison: her own life.
While at the library with her toddler, Molly runs into Miss Clara, the librarian for the children's room, and immediately begins to complain to Clara about the woes of her life. Miss Clara listens intently, however ridiculous the laundry list of woes are, and shows the run-down toddler mom some sympathy. But Clara goes on to ask Molly some serious questions that are meant to make Molly look at her situation differently, only to be met with more excuses for why Molly's got it so bad. Finally, Miss Clara asks the pessimistic mother what she really believes about everything and whether all the things she just ranted about really truly matter in the end. Molly, in a moment of having a right mind, seemed to understand that none of those things really mattered, and said so. Miss Clara responded saying, "Then why do you trouble yourself with all of those things?" and Molly again made a feeble attempt to find a reason - any reason - because she couldn't bring herself to admit that she didn't even know why she worried herself nearly to death about things not in her control!
At the final answer, the ball in Molly's court, she could have admitted that she must not really have much faith in a higher power - the God she professes to believe in - but because she swore that she really does believe and she knows God is in control of everything and that this all has nothing to do with faith at all, in the very moment that those protests left her mouth, the entire universe suddenly changed.
Yes, the universe as Molly once knew it was no longer. Now, it was a manifestation of every fear and worry that Molly was focused on, or projected on to others and everything else.
The moment her child ran her finger over the dust piled on top of old books not opened in ages, then licked said finger, she began to have difficulty breathing. Her face got inflamed and puffy, her eyes watery, and coughed for a whole five minutes. Molly, panicked, yelled for the librarian to call 911, but because Molly had been looking at the librarian the entire time previously and thinking how dumb she must be to not get how none of her problems are of her own doing, the librarian responded and asked, "What?" and seemed to be lost in a book, confused at Molly.
Molly proceeded to call 911, but when the ambulance got there, it was already an hour later, and her child's symptoms had vanished into thin air. The emergency responders questioned Molly over and over for almost an hour, wondering if perhaps Molly should be the one taken in to be reviewed, as her child was happily running around without any sign of having distress.
When Molly insisted to the emergency personnel to at least have her child checked by a doctor, she was in such a tizzy from everything still that she forgot to ask them where they would take her daughter. They ended up driving three hours away for the child to be admitted to the Children's Hospital where Molly became the suspect for child endangerment and her daughter the Guinea pig for a plethora of tests.
Had Molly been having a nightmare all this time? Was this even really happening? Try as she might to wake up from the horrible dream, she could not. She pinched herself, then she tried banging her head on a wall which caused her to go unconscious and then be taken away from her child until the doctors in the Psychiatric ward could figure out what was happening with this woman. Her toddler was really under distress now, and when Molly finally tried to call her husband of five years, she could not find his phone number in her phone! This puzzled her completely, and when she looked down for the first time at her hand, she noticed that the ring she wore wasn't even a wedding band or her engagement ring, but some cheap cocktail ring from Burkes, and worn on her middle finger. Molly was in horror. What was happening to her and how could she break free from this?
Word count: 821