Chelsee crushed the sweat from her forehead with the tea towel then looked round, her neck burning under the collar of her overall. Nobody had noticed. She breathed out, and a popper on the overall unpopped.
The dreary woman sat by the radiator stirring her tea to death, staring out across the bay. She probably thought the caff was too working class. Stuck up, miserable cow.
Another dribble of sweat ran down behind Chelsee’s ear. She shuddered. Tanya and Rachel were huddled over their drinks, laughing, co-conspirators. Rachel twisted her wedding ring as she sniggered over some bitching titbit, and slid a sideways glance at Chelsee.
Cadell the heroic, Cadell the wonderful, Cadell the two year old prodigy wriggled free of the chair, clutching the biscuit he’d been mumbling over and toddled over to the dreary staring woman. Chelsee hoped he would smear the soggy biscuit over Mrs Snootyboots, draw on her like a blackboard, but he didn’t.
Sweat trickled down the valley between her buttocks. So freezing outside, so hot inside. They called it a bun in the oven, didn’t they? But this wasn’t a bun, it was a time-bomb, tick-tick-ticking away. She blundered to the loo, grasping the seat with both hands as she puked. Great chunks of envy soured with despair.
She looked at her wrists, porcelain thin, poking out of last year’s cardigan. The thin tracery of old scars freshly overlaid by the purple and yellow from where dad had mashed her flesh with hands hard as coal.
He’d kill her when he found out. He’d bloody kill her.
Linda Gruchy
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5 comments:
I'm impressed by the way the Linda has picked up on the previous post and added another dimension. I would like to see Chelsee develop--perhaps by a friendship with Louise?
Great piece. Long and loud applause. There are so many lovely lines in this even my claws are green. I will eat you later, Miss Gruchy.
BigFatLion.
I like this for it's double quality of being a stand alone story but also with the potential for plenty more. I'd love to see where life (or your pen) could take Chelsee.
Hugs
Anna xxx
Hi Anna,
Thanks. Chelsee seems very real to me and I hope to do more with her and her family. So you may see some more, if it's good enough.
x Linda
Linda, thanks for flagging up that you're hoping to do more with Chelsee in the future: I must point out, though, that as this is a collaboration, if anyone else wants to take her character on then for a piece or two then that's good too.
In that case, it might be wise for you to give us a brief indication of the subject matter for the piece you're working on now, so that there's no duplication (I had to reject something yesterday because it was too similar in theme to this very piece, which was a shame): although if you did that, then didn't write your piece, it might stop the flow of writing, so you'd have to be very sure you were actually going to do the work.
I hope that makes sense: this grows in complexity every time I think of it!
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