Category Short Story

Speed = Distance x Time

freyathewriter 3 Comments

Charlotte ate green peppers all day long. She was a real paragon of virtue. She went to the gym every day of the week – no excuses. She didn’t drink anything except water and camomile tea. She was a fine example of health and fitness.

And then she wasn’t. Suddenly, or so it seemed, she started filling herself with fast food – McDonald’s, Burger King, Wimpy’s – and drank gallons and gallons of Coke. She started every day with a quadruple espresso with five spoons of sugar – and early mornings were a long-forgotten dream. The gym? Pfft. Who had time for that? Certainly not Charlotte any more.

In short, she started taking up a lot of bad habits.

If asked why – and many people did – she would just wave her hand dismissively and respond in a breezy fashion that she was happier this way. Who needed goals? Certainly not Charlotte. Not any more.

Of course, life is not that simple. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Nobody had been with Charlotte when she decided to service her clapped out old car on the August bank holiday. All her friends were out of town with family and other loved ones. She was insistent that home was where she was staying  – she had gym obligations, a marathon to train for and besides, her food preferences were so different to everyone else’s that she often ended up not eating at all, which was, of course, a very bad thing. At no point would she admit that she was lonely because of it, not even to herself. So, she busied herself attending to her car. A money saving opportunity so that she could travel to the New York Marathon – so she told herself.

The whole servicing exercise went well. It was easy – at least on a car that didn’t rely on diagnostics like modern cars. Mechanics was a new skill for her, and one that she was good at.

Not quite as good as she thought. The thing that she did to the brakes on the Honda – that was the tipping point. Careering down Lakey Hill at 60mph, the B52s blaring from the new speakers she’d wired up to the cassette deck, she couldn’t have been happier. Until she tried to brake. Nothing. Nothing but a loose pedal, a blind bend and a dry stone wall hurtling towards her.

Charlotte didn’t remember the impact. The smell of leaking brake fluid and hot metal and oil spreading across the road wiped all of that from her memory banks. But the bruise across her shoulder as the seatbelt jerked her back into her seat and the body-wide aches and pains reminded her that she was damned lucky to get out alive. The car of course was a write-off. She didn’t care about that.

Life could not be planned and controlled to the finest details. It could however be enjoyed in all its fragility.

For now, eating and drinking everything she had denied herself for years was the answer. If her friends couldn’t cope with that, well, that was their problem.

Or so she told herself.

SoCS Feb 20/16 – contractions

freyathewriter 3 Comments

“Don’t we always stop off for a coffee when we finish our shopping?”

“Don’t I always say not to exaggerate?”

And so the stand off begins. I’m fuming because Sarah is faffing around whilst I’m loaded down with the shopping – mostly hers, I might add – because yet again, she has ‘one of her backs’. Really? I used to be sympathetic, but ‘one of her backs’ or ‘one of her heads’ seem to me to come on when it’s most convenient for her, and as I see it, least convenient for me.

She tilts her head, smiles beguilingly. I know that look. “Oh come on, Trish! Look – there’s a free table now. Why don’t I grab it and you get the coffee, and some of that lovely Victoria sponge?”

It was kind of a question, that tiny lilt at the end of the suggestion. But I know Sarah better than that. If I don’t do as she wants, she’ll sulk. Oh, not in an obvious way, but her “Oh, OK, if you haven’t got enough money’, or whatever it is she’ll say, will be laced with childish resentment.

I’ve had it. Completely had it. “No, I’m going home. I’m tired, there are too many people in town. I just want to go home right now and put my feet up.”

I walk off, heading for the car park. Selfish perhaps, because she’ll have to get the bus if she really is in need of a caffeine and sugar hit. But I have the shopping to carry. I’ve been at work all week. I’m done.

Rapid steps ring on the pavement behind me as I trudge up the hill. Bags are taken from my hand. I feel lighter, literally and figuratively. Hallelujah! She’s seen more than her own needs, just for a change. It’s been a long time coming.

“Hey Sarah, lovely to see you. let me help you with those bags.”

My heart sinks. Andy. My friend. Me – as in Trish. Not Sarah. God, are we that interchangeable?

I hate being a twin sometimes.

—–

Here’s this week’s entry into Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Please head on over to Linda’s blog to read all the delicious creativity that can be found there. This week, it’s all about contractions – Linda has invited us to start our entry with a contraction, and see where it takes us. I never expected to write about twins. I’m not one, although I have do have brothers and sisters. We are all spread out in both age and geography. Sussex for me, Worcestershire for one sister, Berkshire for another and my brother is currently working on the high seas as a musician on a cruise ship.

Thank you once again to Linda for creating this vibrant community!

SoCS Feb. 13/16 – tire

freyathewriter 12 Comments

‘I wonder if one ever tires of living life like just this,’ he mused, stroking his beard meditatively. He glanced across at his wife, who, to all intents and purposes seemed to be basking in the sunlight pouring in from the tall, Georgian sash window just behind her. This library of his, everyone declared, was the finest in the county.

“What do you think, my dear, hmm?” he asked, as if she had heard his thoughts as clearly as if they had been uttered into the still, mahogany clad room.

“I think I’m bored to tears, Humphrey. Why on earth we have to stay here when everyone else is in St Tropez is absolutely beyond me. At least let me go, why can’t you?”

Humphrey frowned. The perils of marrying a woman twenty years his junior seemed to be thrust under his Roman nose more and more often these days. As one of the bright young things, she had been an absolute charm, but now her tone was shrill, her wants had turned into needs and he rather suspected she was beginning to tire of him and his middle-aged ways. But dammit all, he’d had enough excitement in the last shout, and if the papers were to be believed, that arrogant little man with the ridiculous moustache was spoiling for another fight sooner rather than later. No, he, Humphrey, just wanted a quiet life.

“Anything you want my dear, you shall have. Get Frensham to pack your bags and we’ll get you on old Davidson’s little plane lickety spit. Will that do you?”

She jumped up. all smiles and red lipstick. “Oh, Humphrey, you are the most darling creature, I don’t care what they say about you!”

She shimmied out of the room, calling for her maid, heels echoing on the marble as she skipped into the hall.

No. He would never tire of her, this house, this life.

Especially now that he had the place to himself for a few weeks. Just like the old times. Just the way he liked it.

——-

Here’s my first attempt at Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Please head on over to Linda’s blog to find out and to read all the delicious creativity that can be found there.

Thank you to Linda for creating this little community!