DELAYED - a story in a hundred words

DELAYED

When my flight is seriously delayed, I phone Ellie.

She’s furious. “How could you? We’re meeting the vicar tomorrow!”

Her shrill voice carries to the woman beside me, who smiles sympathetically. “My boyfriend has to attend a business dinner alone – he thinks I’ve done it deliberately.”

The airline offers hotel rooms and we share dinner – I haven’t talked to Ellie for that long, ever.

We meet again at breakfast, share a cab back to the airport, and part on a promise – once the decks are cleared we’ll meet again.

We have so much more to say.

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Rochelle is the indefatigable woman who runs this weekly beanfeast and you can find her on  https://rochellewisoff.com/   if you follow the froggy link you can read scores of other stories prompted by her photograph.

I have been busy painting the door frames on my landing. It's a small cottage and the three doorframes, which comprise three sides of a square, have only an inch of wall between them. This makes positioning the drip sheet easy, but it's also easy to step back and smudge the paint, and oh! the repetetiveness of the task! Only the light shining on wet paint tells me where I've been and which is still waiting to be done.

Writing and gardening have filled my spare time :)
PS - I may be AWOL next week - we are off to Lisnaskea in Northern Ireland to visit my daughter.

VISITING MABEL - a story in a hundred words

VISITING MABEL

“You’ve got a visitor, Nan,” Sandra said brightly.

“That’s nice, dear. The kettle’s boiling, I’ll make tea.”

Aileen looked around. A cushion-filled armchair, an iron warming on the antique range, a chenille cloth hiding the table-legs. Sixty years out of date, certainly, but nothing to suggest the old lady was losing the plot.

Mabel put a cup by Aileen’s elbow and offered a tin of biscuits.

“Don’t take the Bourbons – I’m saving those for Gerald.”

She touched the sepia photograph that held pride of place on the mantelpiece.

“His letter from the front last week said he’d be home soon.”

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People have different ways of coping with grief - who's to say Mabel's way is wrong? Dementia also manifests itself in many different ways, and losing forty years is possibly one of the easiest for the sufferer.

Thanks to Rochelle -  https://rochellewisoff.com/ - for hosting Friday Fictioneers every week, even when she's off on a jaunt, and to Valerie J Barrett for the atmospheric photograph.

SHUTTERS - a story in exactly one hundred words

SHUTTERS

All visitors see are the bright paintwork, the pots of cheerful geraniums leading up to the front door. Nobody notices the shutters down here, the shrubs blocking the steps in case anyone becomes curious.

Two years I have spent here – I mark the days on the wall behind the sofa, hidden from sight.

They tell everyone I died and left them the house. She wants to make it true, but my pathetic son hasn’t the stomach for it.

She will try one day soon. She imagines I am helpless, but even a wooden spoon can be sharpened to a point.

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Thanks as always to https://rochellewisoff.com/  for hosting our weekly jaunt into a flash fiction fantasy world. Follow the link from Rochelle's blog to read scores of other stories, all prompted by Ceayr's photo of a house that doesn't have the dark story I have attributed to it - or maybe it does?