Category Archives: The Monday Project

Monday Project: … and there followed a moment’s silence.

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They sat by the phone together, he and she, brother and sister. Waiting. They did not look at the phone with their eyes, but their bodies tried to turn towards it. She pulled at her handkerchief, he bit his lip. The branches of the bare tree outside scratched at the window glass.

When the phone did finally ring its sound filled the room and silenced the tree. The siblings held their breath, locked in a silent argument with one another. ‘You answer it.’ ‘No, you.’ ‘I did it last time.’ ‘You did not.’ ‘Did too.’ ‘Did not.’

He answered it.

“Yes. Thank you. No thank you. No. They didn’t want us to. Yes. The crematorium. Thank you. Goodbye.”

The phone clunked as he put it down. Silence, for a moment.

“So,” she said, and dabbed at her eyes, which were not wet.

“Yes,” he replied. “We should organise the funeral.”

“We’ve already done that. They’ve already done that.”

The tree was scratching again at the window.

“What should we do then?” he said.

She pulled at her handkerchief.

“Stella?”

“Let’s eat out.” She was up, quickly, striding towards the door that led to the next room. “They would want us to celebrate, finally. I’ll wear that red lipstick with that green dress; you can wear that tie Mum always loved.”

He raised his eyebrows at his sister; he’d owned the tie more than ten years ago.

“Oh. Well, not that one then.” She removed her hand from the door knob. “What then, Stuart?”

He stood up. “Sit down Stella. We need to absorb this.”

“You’re not sitting down.”

“No. I’m not.”

The tree scratched louder. The siblings blinked at each other from opposite sides of the room. She felt she should cry, but could not. She had been sure she would be able to. He could not believe his sister was not crying; she always did. She had cried when their parents had first told them what they were going to do. (“Weak eyes,” their father had said kindly. “Just like your mother.” Their mother glowered at him briefly, through eyes filled with tears.)

Stuart had wanted to be strong for Stella, to support her while she cried, but she appeared perfectly able to support herself for now, and he felt himself close to tears instead.

“I could wear a different tie.”

“Oh Stuart.” She took a step towards him.

“Don’t. I’m hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”

—

There’s more to this story, but I’m still working on it, and hope to have it published at some point, so I’m sort of keeping it to myself at the moment. I might share a little more of it later on. Any feedback on this part would be greatly appreciated though.

I’m posting this as my response to this month’s Monday Project theme. We’ll have the next one up soon, so play along if you’re interested.

Writing exercises

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This semester I’m doing just the one subject at uni, in an effort to slow down. It’s a short story workshop, which is right up my alley, because I love short stories (to read and write). Each week we’re being given an exercise to explore the various elements of stories (short or long, really); character, place etc etc. I thought I might share them each week.

For last week’s class we had to take a character from one of our stories to the supermarket. In writing, that is. I’m working on a short story I wrote last year — and that needs a lot of improvement! — so any feedback would be more than welcome.

I’ll also be posting these entries on The Monday Project.

——

The supermarket is only just opening when Bella steps off the bus. This is her favourite time to shop because the place is virtually empty and she can be as slow as she likes without worrying that she will in someone’s way.

She recognises the cashier at the only open register and attempts a smile, but is rebuffed with a look of confusion and lack of recognition. The girl is here every week, but Bella supposes there’s not much interest in remembering a little old lady with a squeaky fabric grocery trolley. She certainly wouldn’t have been interested when she was the girl’s age. Bella sighs and moves to the toilet paper and laundry powder end of the supermarket. She has always moved through the supermarket this way, ‘backwards’ as her husband put it on the few times she convinced him to come shopping with her. He hated supermarkets and couldn’t understand the sense of freedom she found in them. “They depress me,” he used to say, but would not, or could not elaborate further.

After comparing the prices, Bella chooses the least expensive toilet paper, which is unfortunately located on the top shelf, almost out of her reach. She will have to risk an avalanche of toilet paper to get a packet down. She looks around her. There is no one in the aisle; no one who could help. On her tip toes, her hand on the handle of her cart to push herself a little higher, Bella manages to knock the paper towards herself and move out of the way to let it drop to the floor. She smiles. Last time she knocked down four or five packets and was too embarrassed to ask for help, so piled the packets on the floor neatly. Later that day, when she got home, she realised that the store probably had cameras and that the store manager could have watched the whole thing. She had caught two extra buses to shop in another supermarket for the next three weeks.

She carefully crosses toilet paper off her list with a pencil from her dress pocket. Laundry powder is also on the list. Thankfully her favoured brand is usually found on the bottom shelf — she assumes this is because not many other people buy it. Sometimes it is not in stock, but today she is in luck. Another straight pencil line on her list.

Monday Project – Brave

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You said once that she thinks too much about the future. She always denied it. Lately, she has been carefully building various plans and putting them away in little boxes under the stairs. From time to time she will pull out an existing box and look through it, get excited, take steps towards making that box her life and then, without explanation, hurriedly put the box back in its place under the stairs.

Month upon month she adds to the delicate pattern of squares under the stairs, watching on as you use the same ragged bag to pack hasily made plans into and head off into the world. Reckless, she calls you, bull at a gate. But she sighs heavily and sleeps badly.

The plan boxes grow dusty and she grows grumpy and loses weight, perhaps from all the extra fidgeting. She drinks too much red wine and laughs too long and loud. Sometimes her heart beats faster without explanation, her hair quivers at the roots and her hands and face grow hot. You cannot help her because she will not answer your calls.

One night she wakes up shivering and sweating. She showers and eats breakfast in the quiet dark of 3am. Into a small bag she throws some probably inappropriate clothes, says farewell to the cat and leaves the house, stopping only momentarily to smell the mustiness of the cavity under the stairs. Reckless, the boxes whisper to her.

She pulls the door shut behind her, watches her breath create clouds in the cold air and wonders if she will see you somewhere out there.

———–

This is my submission for this month’s Monday Project. This theme is particularly potent for me at the moment because I am struggling with my own bravery (or lack thereof!). Perhaps I should read this book again for inspiration.

Late! Again. Monday Project: Treasure

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She has been trapped in this room for a month, watching. One morning the television screens were just there when she woke up. A whole wall of them, flickering at her, humming quietly.

That morning she couldn’t find the door to her bedroom; the screens had been erected in front of it. There was no escape. At first she had yelled, screamed, cried, but no one had come and there had been no change in the television screens.

Then she would not watch them. She closed her eyes, blocked her ears and hid under her blankets. For a while it was blissful. But her imagination eventually got the better of her. ‘What if no one comes for me?’ she thought. ‘There must be a way out.’

And so she spent the first day inspecting the space around the screens, trying the window. But there was no way out. Here she was stuck, at least for now.

Each of the screens showed a different image. Some screens were clear and distinct, on others the image was intermittent and sometimes blurry. On that first day she became transfixed on a screen that flickered between a hazy yellow light, as if the camera taking the footage was pointed directly at the sun , and images of a little girl building a sand castle with her pregnant mother. The little girl was chattering incessantly and the mother replying occasionally, but their voices could not be heard.

Sally looked for a volume knob and turned it as far to the right as she possibly could. But only the hum of the television screen got louder, the voices still only heard as if from a distance.

—

This is my (late again) submission for this month’s Monday Project. Come and play along!

This clearly isn’t finished, but I thought it was better to submit something unfinished than to submit nothing at all. I’m not entirely sure where this is going, so any suggestions or impressions would be welcome!

The Monday Project: Missing You

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She looked at the pile of boxes in the room. They reached higher than her head. The heavy step ladder helped her reach the top box, which she brought out of the room with her.

New memories were in her head now, they filled up nearly every corner of her brain, trickled down her spine and flowed into other parts of body. They dictated how she moved through the world, what she saw, what she smelled, whether she danced or frowned. But one little part of her refused to forget, refused to live in the present. It lived in this box, in the memories.

She did not open the box for a long time, just sat on the end of the bed with the box on her knees. When her legs started to fall asleep she moved the box to the floor at her feet and continued to watch it, to feel its heaviness with her eyes. She was frightened of this box and its contents, even as she simultaneously loved it.

Packing it had been difficult. It had taken her days, even months, in her head, but the physical packing was over in mere minutes. Years of her life, years she needed to forget, had been thrown carelessly into this box. She had thought that packing her memories away would help her move on. If she couldn’t remember she wouldn’t mourn what she was leaving behind. But she had missed the memories, missed who she was with them in her head, and this had kept her off-centre. Now, more than a year later, here she was. Box at her feet, about to dive back in.

“Wish me luck,” she whispered to someone unseen, and cut open the tape on the top of the box.

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This is my submission to the Monday Project this month (the project theme is Missing You). It’s a little late — sorry!