Tag: short story

Categories
fiction Writing

Missing (Part 2)

My breathing is drastically increasing in pace, but I won’t stop until I find her. Each time the wind blows I jump as if someone is behind me or in case I miss a vital clue. The sounds of the birds and other creatures in nature makes me also second guess whether I am missing something that will lead me to her.

‘Why did she leave? Why did she ever go out on her own? Why?’ I shout this out loudly in case somebody can hear me and might be able to help. Even if they can’t I long for a companion, someone to be a physical comfort through my search. Simply to be there.

I find a large stick the size that our Cocker Spaniel, Buster, usually chooses whenever we are on a longer dog walk. His size is always disproportionate to the stick he decides to carry with him and no matter how many people he nearly knocks over with it, there is no way he will let us take it off him. He growls as if in danger when Sarah or I attempt to remove the wooden trunk from his mouth, so we always give up and let him have his own way, as with most other things.

I use the stick to move the trees and bushes away so that I can clearly view what lays underneath. I don’t know why I am choosing to do this, but I feel it is more productive than doing nothing at all. I realise I am jumping to conclusions or pre-empting an awful discovery by choosing to search this way, but I am hopeless in despair, so I feel that I have no other choice.

After a while of being away from the house I notice that I have forgotten my phone or any form of time telling device, so I have no way of knowing how long I have been gone. The children must be wondering where I have got to and Mum must be worrying silly about my whereabouts or where my anger and frustration has led me. She knows from experience how bad I can get sometimes. She must have so many questions running through her head about the real story of what happened to Sarah. She always second guesses me but this time I have told her the whole truth. All I know of it anyway.

Suddenly, I get a sense within me like a dog would in a police search unit and run back to Mum’s to get into my car. Adrenaline kicks in giving me the energy to take on the distance from the forest to the house. I run off-pieced to get to the fields quicker, cutting my leg on thorn bushes and obtaining numerous nettle stings in the process. I run through the fields, ignoring the clearly marked public footpaths and instead trample through the carefully planted crop, my nose starting to run as soon as I reach the bright yellow field full of rapeseed. Usually I wouldn’t be able to cope with the allergies but the panic increases with my desperation to get to the car, so knowing that this field is the next from home allows me to continue. I stop at the edge of Mum’s garden to catch my breath and decide how to enter so that nobody will notice me taking the car or notice me at all in fact. I don’t wish to be seen, I just want to get to her and fast.

Categories
fiction Writing

Missing (Part 1)

My face is numb, but I can still feel it. It is a weird sensation as if my cheekbones have turned to jelly and the feeling is slowly evaporating never to return, but in the present moment the physical awareness remains. The expression that I have been holding for the past fortnight won’t leave and it is paining me knowing this but there is nothing I can do about it. The exhaustion throughout my body remains too and no matter how much I try to relax, my mind doesn’t allow for any form of recuperation.

‘Why don’t you get some rest,’ Mum says affectionately while she tries to remain normal and feed the children their favourite – spaghetti hoops on toast.

Though I know she means well, it is the last thing I wish to hear because I cannot rest until we find her.

‘I just can’t.’ I snap at her not meaning to and leave, heading into the unknown.

I walk out of Mum’s patio doors which lead into her huge garden. Her garden has been an ongoing project for as much of my life as I can remember. It has been so carefully designed at an extortionate price by a professional to look as wild and uncared for as it does, and my feet speed up into an almost run as I traipse through. Her garden backs on to an expanse of fields. Wide open space with nothing else around until the forest, but that is over a mile in the distance so I don’t know whether I will get that far.

Running through this landscape gives me a total sense of freedom and new energy that I haven’t experienced for almost a month and it is something that cannot be explained in words. I feel as if I can fly and the sweet smell of Mum’s garden resonates in my nostrils as I proceed to make the distance to the forest. This is also a new thing that I am noticing because smells are certainly something that have vanished during this dark time. Noticing the scent of the Hydroniums and Honeysuckle lingering in my memory bank pleases me but doesn’t remove my hurt.

On reaching the forest a wave of panic that I am so familiar with now comes over me again. It swarms my body as if a snake wrapping itself tightly around my frame with intention to kill. All the new energy that I had whilst I was pacing through the fields has instantly disappeared. My sense of freedom too has washed away into the air and I am left feeling that all too intimate sensation of horror that has been a permanent fixture inside me lately.

I begin searching frantically in the bushes, even looking high up into the trees.

‘Sarah!’ I scream in pure desperation hoping, naively, that she will pop out from behind a large tree trunk and shout ‘Hello!’ as if all of this has been some sort of sick joke.

Categories
Adulthood fiction Stories Writing

The Disagreement

Jane and Oliver knew that they were late for lunch at the new pub that opened in the village last night, but they couldn’t leave during the debate. Both of them were very excited to try the new menu and see how the place had been transformed from its old ragged self into a shiny new upmarket venue. Yet they also didn’t want the onlooking villagers to gossip over their table mannerisms showing quite opaquely the row that they had prior to arriving.

He’s certainly having an affair with the accountant, the rumours would begin, Jane knew the village too well. They had to settle it before leaving the house.

‘Look, all I’m saying is that he would be much better off in a care home. It’s for the best,’ Oliver said with the same irritatingly calming tone that he always used during arguments.

‘What if it was your father? Would you be happy just to lock him away?’

‘Jane, it’s not a case of locking him away. We will visit him all the time and some of the homes are luxury these days. To be honest I’d prefer to stay in them rather than a posh hotel.’

The playful shift in Oliver’s manner wasn’t reciprocated by Jane who merely stared at him disapprovingly.

‘I’d personally want to live my last years in my own space, my own home, without old folk making me feel twenty years older than I am. He’s not even ill!’

‘Jane, we’ve been through this.’

‘Don’t.’

Holding back the tears, Jane soon realised that lunch was going to have to wait until another day.