The Waiting Game - WWBH Short Story

WWBH 

This is my story for this week’s WWBH prompt:

Here is a friendly reminder of the rules for the prompt: 

 

1) Use the photo(s) and prompt to write a story; all elements of the prompt must be a feature in the brief story you create.

2) Stay with the 500-word limit.

3) Craft and link your post by the following Tuesday.

4) When you have finished your post, link up your story using the inLinkz frog at the bottom of the prompt. If you are having trouble linking up, let us know in the comment section, and we'll help you get linked up!

5) Have fun! Let the creative juices flow!

Here is your prompt for this week! Write a story incorporating both of these photos:

THE WAITING GAME

The days were rolling by relentlessly, minutes ticking by as the seconds slowly swept round the clock face.  Gillian couldn’t believe that she was on bed rest yet again.  Another month the doctor had said.  

Lilian was going to feed her daughter up.  She needed to eat more greens, nice healthy broccoli full of vitamin C and other goodies.  She would immerse the florets in a bowl of iced water to deepen the colour until they became bright emerald and then steam them for a few minutes to keep all the flavour and nutrients.  

 

Lilian remembered her own mother boiling the greens, mainly limp-leafed cabbages, to death – no, she should not have thought of that word.  She will make sure Gillian heeds the medical advice, no more scary visits to the hospital.  

Dismissing that idea with a slight shake of her head Lilian  remembered the strained cabbage of her day, the boiled water drained from the saucepan through the colander, quickly manipulating pot and colander to catch the water, seasoned with salt, pepper and vinegar, tipped in to a mug and then drunk  because ‘that was where all the goodness was.’  Well at least they knew there was goodness in vegetables back then. 

This farmhouse kitchen was an impressive room.  Matt, had done a good job, he was a good husband to her ailing daughter.  He managed all the work on the farm and still perked Gillian’s spirits up when he came in from a day out in the field. Lilian was pleased their love for each other was so strong that together they would get through this phase of their life.

Lilian looked above the red gingham café curtains hiding the bottom of the window.  Her gaze was taken to the pale looking cow in the paddock.  The strong head adorned with antlers, its aquiline nose, eyes looking across the field snootily at some unknown threat, those brown adorable cow eyes with a look that was nevertheless somewhat ferocious.  

 

The white painted fence that enclosed the large paddock didn't look strong enough to hold the beast in if it set its mind to escaping.  Lilian went back to the pots on the stove, chastising herself for her fanciful thinking. 

Gillian looked out of her bedroom window on to the same vista that her mother downstairs could see.  She loved Matt and the farming life, which had surprised her more than anybody, having been brought up in the city for the majority of her life.  

Matt’s family had taken her in and taught her all the small things about living on a farm in the middle of nowhere entailed, things that were almost obvious to them but she knew nothing about.  

Four more weeks until this much wanted baby came, finally after all this nurturing, it would be worth all the inactivity imposed upon her, boring, endless days and nights of bed rest, crossword puzzles and her ‘To Be Read’ list on her Kindle grew shorter daily. 

Word count: 499