Writing prompts this week courtesy of Kelley McNeil’s A Day Like This, my current read.
He looked at me across the table, a wobbly smile on his unshaven face. Bruised rings shadowed his intelligent brown eyes behind black-framed glasses. His grey-streaked dark hair was clean, but appeared not to have benefited from a comb any time recently.
‘I’d imagined something very different for my life,’ he said. He glanced around. ‘Not this.’
I nodded. ‘Makes sense. Most people don’t actually plan to end up here.’
‘Yes.’ He crossed his arms and peered at me closely. ‘Swap places?’
I humphed. ‘Not sure I have it in me.’
‘I’m not coping.’ He blinked at the crowd gathered in the stuffy room, the various conversations happening, the looks exchanged.
‘What did you imagine it would be like?’ I asked. ‘Your life?’
He shrugged, arms still folded defensively against his chest. ‘I wanted to be a writer, scribbling away in my attic so to speak.’ He grimaced. ‘I never imagined ending up in here …’
‘You’ll settle in,’ I assured him. ‘Get used to it. Dream about the things you’ll do, later, when …’ I let the sentence hang. How long this lasted depended on his behaviour. It was up to him. He seemed to catch my thought.
‘Not sure I can behave like they want me to any longer. The strain’s too much.’ He glanced at the books heaped on the table. ‘I won’t make that mistake again.’
No?
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if this is to be your last novel as a famous author, it’s even more important you sign it for me.’ I tapped the open page of the book I’d purchased from the heap. ‘To Kate, please, with a K.’
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Find Cheryl’s flash fiction and short stories, including audio versions of some, here!
The garbage truck trundled slowly down the street as, firmly grasping the giant steering wheel in both hands, I stopped by each household rubbish bin.
On every occasion, I carefully watched the giant telescopic arm extend to pick up the wheeled plastic receptacle, then raise it high in the air and deposit the contents into the yawning, open dumpster immediately behind the cabin – before placing it tenderly back on the nature strip from whence it resided.
Sad to say, this was my lot – five days a week, 52 weeks a year – oh, except for annual holidays or if sickness prevented me from coming to work.
“I’d imagined something very different for my life,” I muttered to my companion squatting next to me on the long bench seat.
“What do you mean?” he asked politely, not all that interested in the answer.
“Should have been an engineer,” I said, encouraged despite his obvious lack of interest. “Would’ve have built bridges, great big bridges spanning wide rivers and carrying lots of traffic from one destination to another.”
“What stopped you?”
“My maths wasn’t good enough so I wasn’t accepted into the university course.”
“No doubt you could have done lots of other things, even if your maths wasn’t up to scratch,” my companion observed.
“No doubt,” I agreed. “But, somehow, I ended up here working for the council and driving garbage trucks for a living.
Not that there is anything wrong with that,” I added hastily. “And I do love machinery, especially these big vehicles.”
My companion smiled.
“So, it’s not all bad,” he said. “After all, we are out in the open air – rain, hail or shine and, apart from the smell, what could be better.” His raucous laughter filled the cabin.
I couldn’t help but agree as the truck continued to move slowly, its telescopic arm extending continually in a tender caress.
As a successful author, I gather he doesn’t like book signings. Is that right?
Id imagine, some thing very different for my life, said’ the lolly pop lady. I was working, in a school teaching children, when I had an accident, and years later with children, at secondary school, I am standing at the side of the road, The children and parents are mostly ok, but the car drivers are so impatient..