Glasses on a table

3,231 words - short story inspired by this picture

and the song Hello by Shakespears Sister


 She woke up. It was the moment before dawn when everything looks grey. She rubbed her eyes and looked around in the barren room. She didn't know where she was. Getting up, she pulled the sheets with her to cover her naked body. She walked to the window and stepped on the small french balcony. It was cold; her breath rose from her lips as warm steam. It drifted into the grey air.

Not a cat was to be seen on the deserted street. Not a sound to be heard.

She turned away.

The room was grey and white. There was no colour anywhere. Her bedsheets were white and crumpled on her mattress on the floor. The little table was littered with paper. Her computer was lying in the corner, where she had flung it the night before. She pulled on a shirt. Her jeans.
She went downstairs without lighting any lamps, leaving her man lying on the second mattress, still fast asleep. There was her supper things still on the table, a mug with ice cold tea in it, a plateful of crumbs and the remnants of an apple. On the floor, more crumbs. She took the things into the sink and swept the crumbs off the floor. She turned the kettle on and put teabags into the pot. She got the paper while the water boiled and then poured it over the teabags.

World was getting its colour back. The sun peeking behind the trees promised a sunny day. She turned away from the window and put some toast into the toaster.

She'd have to go to work today. Just like yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. She'd have to continue like she always had. And even if she didn't; the world wasn't going to stop. Everything would go on even if she didn't.

She drank her tea, without milk or sugar. She called goodbye upstairs as she was pulling on her coat and heard a grunt of an answer. He'd be awake when she came back. He'd have something nice waiting. They'd watch a movie together or something.

Now the streets were full of cars. All shiny and colourful in the morning sunshine. She put on her black sunglasses and waited for the bus, pulling her coat tightly around herself. The bus wasn't long in coming and soon she was at her desk. Her boss shouting at someone. The hustle and bustle of the office didn't seem to touch her at all.

She typed and typed and typed. Then she had lunch at her desk and typed some more. At four she went into the boss's office. He shouted at her at the moment she stepped in. But he always shouted. At everyone. When she had the chance to speak, she told him to shove the job and left. She gathered her things from the table into her bag. She didn't go home yet, she wasn't ready. She walked into a coffee house, ordered a cappuccino and sat down.

She sat in the coffee house, until her cappuccino was cold and the pages of a notebook were filled with jotted down notes and little doodles.

Then she left. Walked home.

Her man was waiting with a cup of tea and warm arms. She cuddled under his arm on the small sofa. He was watching sports; she didn't care. He changed into a movie; she didn't pay attention. He kissed her; she leaned closer.

He asked about her day. She told him about it. He was proud of her and kissed her again. He held her close. On the sofa, all night.

Her glasses on the table. Waiting for another grey morning.

Terry Pratchett - Going Postal (2004)

Moist von Lipwig is a con artist... and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice:
be hanged, or put Ankh-Mormork's ailing postal service back on its feet.
It's a tough decision.

I hadn't read Pratchett in a while, but a friend of mine, who's completely nuts over him, ordered a copy of this book, but with the wrong cover, so I bought it instead.
It was money well spent. I finished the book, all 438 pages, in less than twelve hours.

It was pure Pratchett, this book. Beginning with the fact that the main character's name is MOIST - there were a couple of rather rude jokes about that. He's actually quite a good guy. For being a con man, that is.
The book begins with his "death". Then he meets and "angel", who gives him the choice you see above.
The book's hilariously written, has good verbal play - as I would've expected from Mr. P. - and a very good, exiting plot.

I've also seen the film that was done in 2010, but I prefer the book. The film's good, too, but there are a bit too many things changed for it to be as brilliant as the book.

Jane Austen - Persuasion (1818)

First I couldn't quite get into the book. Not like I had immediately gone into Pride and Prejudice. This one started a bit slower, and more clumsily perhaps. Reading it first only 55 pages, I really couldn't decide whether or not even finish the thing, but then I just picked it back up and continued a few day later. This time I couldn't even put it down before I had finished.

In all Austen's other book I've read, the characters are caricatures of people. Sometimes too much so, in my taste. But in Persuasion all the people, nice or not, are real people, with their good sides and bad sides.

The only one I didn't actually like was the main character Anne Elliot. And it was perhaps because I could see some of myself in her. It was how she "settled for what she got" and really didn't that really annoyed me, but I could also understand it very well - I have done it, too.

Although the characters were superb (Wentworth is definitely my favourite Austen-guy), the writing itself was very incoherent in places; it wasn't at all as refined as I would've expected from Austen. I got me thinking if this had been one of her first novels or one of the last, so I had to check it up. It was one of her last - actually published after her death.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite finished? A very good book, anyway. As good as any of her other books.

Gregory Maguire - Wicked (1995)

Saw the musical Wicked in January, so naturally I had to get my hands on the book, too. I've always thought that the original story of Oz had some huge holes in it, and this one really hit home with me.
So, it's about the Wicked Witch of the West - from here on just WWW. Her youth and how she became what she is in the original story.

It has been a while when I've last read a book that resonated with me in a certain way, but this one really did it. At first, at least.

The book had some about difficult relationships, about growing up being different, about ways of ruling a country... A bit about almost everything that can be difficult to a certain kind of individual. I'm not complaining, really, but I think it had too much of everything and didn't really concentrate properly on anything.

My favourite aspect was perhaps her rebellion against the government, that finally made her Wicked. It was all good propaganda, really, 'cause she really didn't do anything particularly nasty in my opinion. Propaganda and the fact that she was so visibly different - she had green skin etc. This story made a point about how wickedness is a point of view and I very much liked that.

I have always thought this, so it was really refreshing to read something that was written so according to my own views about life. I've sympathized with the Witch the whole time I've known about Oz, because in a way she is just wronged; her sister's shoes are given to a complete stranger, whose house killed her, no less. Then the Wizard tells the same strange girl to kill her, just for being wicked. It has always been difficult for to understand that. Really.

Anyway, all in all I think Wicked was a good read. A bit disjointed in parts, maybe, but always interesting.