Wednesday Write-In #60

This week’s words for CAKE.shortandsweet‘s Wednesday Write-In were:

storm warning  ::  performance  ::  insomnia  ::  turn  ::  stop

I didn’t use the words themselves, but instead let the images they created in my mind lead the direction of my story. This one comes with a warning to anyone who has suffered from serious illness or who has been bereaved through serious illness.

 

Image: book530.com

 

Storm Warning

 

It had started with a strange feeling in her jaw, just at the top of her neck. It was a soft, tender spot, not really sore to the touch but almost, like it was testing the water and seeing how far it could go. She’d lie awake at night, sleep teasing her from around the next corner, never letting herself believe it was such a tiny thing, barely there at all, which kept her eyes from closing.

At work, the students noticed a new and greater emphasis on colour. She began to wear more purple and red, and everything sparkled; when it was remarked upon, she loved it. Her lipstick shade had stayed the same since 1973, but now she went out of her way to buy tube after tube of gaudiness, and she had a generous hand. She started focusing their classes on Surrealism, Fauvism, Pop Art – all bright, all vibrant, all fleeting.

‘You look great!’ they’d tell her, meaning every word. ‘Who’s your new man?’ She’d just purse her lips and raise her eyebrows, and sashay away with a panache she’d never felt in her youth.

But her new man came to her in the night, sitting by her bedside with a twinkling eye.

‘Are you ready yet?’ he’d ask.

‘Not yet,’ she’d answer. ‘One more day.’ He’d leave her with a smile, but she knew he’d be there when she needed him.

When it became obvious, the laughing eyes around her turned horrified.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ ‘Why didn’t you see a doctor?’ ‘Are you crazy?’

She tried to tell them she had no regrets, but they took that as further proof of her incapability. She pleaded for peace and quiet, but they wouldn’t hear of it. They started to insist that she get help, and did not listen when she told them of her happiness.

So she took her lipsticks and her Gombrich and she walked into the whirlwind. Her new man followed shortly after. With a smile on her face and her best dress on, she finally took his hand.