Monday One: Prompts 1 - 7
Sun
If only.
She could put on the good shoes, the ones that brought a smile to her face. Forget about the useless man, forget about the scratch on her car, the weeds in her garden, the bills piling up in the letter-rack in the hall.
Red and shiny the shoes brought the sun to dark winter days, poking out beneath the hems of her black office trousers making interminable meetings seem shorter and bearable.
Why had she made the rule? Not to rely on the shoes but to wait for the sun when all it did was rain, rain, rain ...
An accident
The flowers which had initially dropped their pollen on the polished surface were now dropping their petals on top in haphazard fashion. The vase looked bright, cheerful, pretty with its contents spent, sparse and lifeless. Bought on a weekend away it had heralded such promise as an icon of love.
True love equals a mini break. It was a cliché, stolen from a film enjoyed with friends, but a maxim for life from then on amongst the group. The mini break had been an accident, an accident waiting to happen. And the vase, a souvenir, followed it to the floor.
Talk
He could talk. Certainly he could talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. He rarely actually said anything. Ask him for his opinion on what to eat, where to go, what to give his mother for her birthday and filter down the response and you had nothing. Come in late, even a few minutes after the time you said you would, wear a new top to go out, go out without giving a fortnight’s notice and boy did he talk. Like the boy who cried wolf, all that talking got him nowhere. For in the end no-one actually listened any more.
Beaker
It had been a bad day at the end of a bad week in what was fast turning out to be a bad month in a potentially bad year. She let out a sigh as she dropped into the sofa, her feet lifting off the ground as her head, tipped backwards, met its comfortable padded back.
Monday she’d worry about the work on her desk. Pay day she’d write cheques and post them. Next month she’d think about getting away for a few days and take a break. But tonight was a night for wine.
She reached for her beaker.
Bad luck
The day the flat tyre stopped her taking the car out. Or the day the milk was off. The day the water didn’t run. That was bad luck.
Finding out he’d been sleeping with her best friend? That wasn’t bad luck. If there was any luck in it at all then it was good luck. He didn’t see that, but then he’d always wanted his cake and to eat it. If he hadn’t wanted to get caught he shouldn’t have done it in their flat, in their bedroom, in their bed.
Was that bad luck? You make your own luck.
Laughing
Her sides were hurting. It wasn’t all that easy to stand up straight. The news had hit her for six, or even seven. She hadn’t expected it to last at the beginning. Every day she’d been waiting for the end to come. For the first week, then the first month she’d expected it. Then after the end of that first lovely year the fear had started to go and she began to trust him. But more than that, to trust herself. And in doing that she made her mistake.
“If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry,” her mother used to say.
Cost
The cost was always prohibitive.
“Let’s have a holiday?”, she snuggled up to him.
“Can’t afford it. Maybe next year.”
“Will you come shopping with me? I’d like your opinion on a new dress.”
“Dress? D’you think we’re made of money? There’s nothing wrong with the one you’ve got.”
“Have you got a tenner?” he’d ask and she’d go into her purse to find one.
“If you’re taking the car out, fill it up with petrol,” he’d hand her the keys.
He didn’t know that she’d found the card to his secret account and changed the pin number. She smiled.