Category Anger

Reap – Trifextra Week 80

freyathewriter 28 Comments

This weekend, the Trifecta team’s Trifextra challenge asks us to write only 33 words, including the word ‘tooth’, but excluding stories of milk-teeth tooth loss. 

Here’s my offering this week. It’s weird, came out of nowhere and I’m not sure what to make of it – are you? Let me know!

And… why not visit here to read all the other brilliant offerings?! Or, take part yourself….

*****

– Reap –

I created a monster out of you.

 I moulded you to my desires.

 I wished. Here you are.

 Like the jagged tooth of a cheap comb, you cut me.

 And

Made

Me

Bleed.

Mouse – Trifecta Week 87

freyathewriter 32 Comments

Below is my offering for week 87′s Trifecta challenge word, which is ‘charm’. As you will see from the relevant blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘charm’ is:

– to control (an animal) by charms (as the playing of music)

Here’s my offering below – I hope you like it! Please check here for the other entries!

*****

– Mouse –

Graham can charm anyone. It’s just how she is.

Of course, her name is the best ice-breaker ever. ‘Oh, Mum is American,’ she says, as if that explains everything. In middle-of-nowhere, suburban England, it works like magic.

She accompanies that breezy statement with a flick of her perfect blond hair. Everything is so effortless for her. I adored basking in her reflected rays when I was younger. I was ‘Graham’s friend’. Often it was ‘Graham and Sarah’, like we came as a package, which we did. Still do, really.

All that innocence and mystery started getting to me when I reached that awkward teenage stage. I got spots – she developed breasts. My chest remained flat as a pancake for so long, even my mum wondered if I should go to the doctors, muttering about hormones.

I really resented all the attention she got from boys. They couldn’t keep away – she was perfect, a vision of youth and beauty. I stood in her shadow, getting her cast-offs who were just not interested in a short, stocky, brown-haired, teachers’ daughter.

I was jealous. I admit it.

Then, I wasn’t. I must have been about fifteen. I turned up at Graham’s one day, unannounced. I’d left my cherry lip-gloss in her bedroom and I really, really needed it. So, I sneaked into their house, quiet and unobtrusive, like the mouse that Mrs Edwards chose to call me.

There was Graham in the kitchen, cowering in front of her shouting, red-faced mother.

‘You will not do that ever again! Do you hear me? When I tell you to cook the dinner, I mean prepare it properly, not just heat up leftovers in the oven!’

And then she swept all the plates, the cups, the saucers, the food, everything off the table. Crockery smashed, cutlery bounced and food spattered, mostly over Graham herself. She stood, dripping in gravy, head down.

I backed out, unseen.

Envy cured, instantly.

Trifecta

In a safe place

freyathewriter 10 Comments

I told her not to come back. I told her – this is exactly what I said – “You must never come back here.” That’s what I told her. I didn’t feel safe.

I was terrified. I changed the locks. I checked the windows each night and every morning, just to be on the safe side, you know? I barricaded myself in. I changed my schedule, stopped walking the same way to work. I made everything different. Or rather, I tried to make it that way.

You see, there were things I couldn’t change.

I couldn’t stop what she did, how she behaved. She used to tell me that, all the time. She would say it just like that – “You can’t control me Chloe. You can’t put me in a box. You can’t file me away.” That’s what she would say.

She wasn’t neat and tidy, not like me. She was too noisy, too messy, too untidy. She scent-marked everything, like a dog.

So untidy.

I like order. It’s how my life works, how it makes sense. I like the quietness of everything in place. It keeps me calm, makes me feel safe. I like things to be clean. I like peace.

I wasn’t safe when she was around. She was always here, in every room at once. Nowhere belonged any more.

I told her not to come back, do you understand. I told her, just like that – “You must never come back here.”

She didn’t listen. She insisted on doing what she wanted to do, just like she always had done. I was very, very clear.

Now, she’s made even more of a mess. She made me. She made me make a mess. Just look, everywhere. Broken glass, shattered plates, wine, pasta, in all the wrong places.

All that mess, all that noise, all that disorder, oh it hurts so badly, it makes me cry.

I was so afraid. So, so afraid.

It hurts. It makes me cry.

That’s what she said – yes, these are the words she said to me, and she was crying too – “Look. Chloe, you’ve hurt me, you’ve really, really hurt me. It hurts so badly. Make it stop.”

That’s what she said.

I did what I was told. I’m so good at following rules and orders. I made it stop.

I made it stop.

I like things to be neat and tidy. I washed it, put it back in the drawer, in just the right place.

Everything is silent now. I shut the door to the kitchen. If I can’t see it, it isn’t there, that’s right, isn’t it? That’s what she used to tell me, when I got really stressed, when she made another mess – “Shut the door. You can’t see it. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see it.”

I’ve shut the door. She was right.

I can’t see her any more.

She won’t come back.

It’s so quiet.

Now, I am safe.