Wednesday, 5 April 2017

WEDNESDAY WRITERS - ALICE

This week's WEDNESDAY WRITERS prompt is a choice of photo prompts.






Using at least three of the pictures and a maximum of 500 words our task is to craft a story.

ALICE


Scuffing through the autumn leaves in her wellington boots, forgetting for a moment or two that she was an adult, a grown up, a responsible human being with responsibilities for not only herself but other people. 

She looked down at her feet, feeling the cold seep up through her woollen socks, creeping up her shins into her kneecaps.  Then she saw the daisy.   A daisy peeking through the dead leaves.  The meaning wasn’t lost on her.  In all dark days there was a glimmer of hope, new life dawning, so come on, girl, she chided herself get it together.

Head up high, shoulders squared, Alice started back towards home.  She would get through these next few days. She would show them all.  No matter what they thought of her she would not dissolve into a useless heap, a female who couldn’t cope, one who cried and cried.  She was done crying.  She was done feeling sorry for herself.  She was done being the victim.

With renewed purpose Alice set about the housework, dusting, polishing, sweeping and hoovering until the living areas gleamed and sparkled.  It was an hour and a half cycle on the washing machine and she was very proud of all she’d achieved in that time.  Now it was time to hang put the washing on the line.  The wonderful breeze would dry the laundry in no time.  She smiled to herself as she started hanging items out, pleased as punch that she’d purchased wooden clothes pegs and not those garishly coloured plastic pegs that broke and snapped their springs as soon as you put them under any pressure.  Sheets and duvet covers were too heavy for them but the wooden ones, apart from being nice and tactile to the touch, could cope with anything.  


As she hung each piece of clothing she chanted her mantra over and over again.  ‘Peg the tops from the bottom and bottoms from the top.’  She didn’t suffer from OCD, honest, she said to no-one in particular as there was no-one in the garden to hear her anyway but really why people didn’t comply with this simple rule of hanging wet washing out was beyond her.  Again she chanted under her breath ‘tops from the bottom and bottoms from the top.’

She stood back and surveyed the whirligig washing line – perfectly hung out washing.  What more could a girl want? 

Well quite a bit actually she mused.  For example, those gorgeous peek-a-boo golden shoes, set off with a bow on the front she saw in the shop window last week. 


They were so delicious, she didn’t really care how much they cost (because she could never afford them anyway) neither did she care if she could actually walk in them.  She would just display them on a shelf in the living room and look at them every day.  She may even stroke the outline of them now and then probably in the pretence of giving them a dust or a polish.

Word count: 499

2 comments:

  1. I think I would like Alice. But I was really hoping that first goofy photo would make its way into your story. Ha Ha

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  2. I love the way you weave those photos into a story! I enjoyed that!

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