Back To The Start

• Abbie Mcdermott, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

She didn’t exactly wish for a life this mundane. But, she must’ve known that washing clothes and feeding families was a normal life for a woman. On the occasion, she found herself longing for silence. She missed its sweet touch, its velvet-like embrace, the warmth she’d not feel till the sun darkens and the flawed moon with all its perfection would take over and embellish the blank canvas of lazy blue, with paint that speckled its twilight curtain. She’d wonder if her performance was nearly complete, an interesting story she would tell, stories of love, heartbreak, passion, fear and distress. “It would be enough to get those buffoons on the edge of their satin chairs” she chuckled with remorse, staring through the normal open windows, with its normal white frames that formed a cross to protect them from normal weather, her normal sink with its grey shades, the sorry excuse of a silver plate held in a normal cream cloth. But she’d farewelled a life of adventure as soon as she farewelled her colleague’s tombstones. To forget her escapades on the battle-field, where like knowing a person she’d only just met. But her loneliness was evicted as soon as he came into her life. She would say the world was reflected in his eyes, like the amber leaves and crystalline sky, the misty fogs in the darkest nights, the sunsets at dusk, and the roses with crimson petals, the sea flowing from his iris and trailing down his cheek, with the simplicity of a chocolate brown. Together forming an imperfect constellation that had captured her heart. She always believed to fall in love with their eyes was the only way to do it. “Susan my dear” footsteps echoed through the hall as a dimpled blonde came in. His arrival placing a smile on both of their faces. She knew she was lonely and broken. But the both could be broken together. And if a mundane life meant spending the rest of it with him, she would gladly take it.