Feel Good Story (1)
L Jay

 


Feel Good Story
L Jay
 



Staring into the posh jeweller’s window, Mary sighed. She felt like a
magpie, her eyes were drawn to all the sparkly rings that were
scattered round. She sighed. Maybe one day she thought to herself.
She had a great past history of dating losers and users. She pulled
herself away from the over priced baubles and carried on her traipse
round the shops. Now it felt that everyone was loved up and happy,
everywhere she looked she saw people hand in hand or pushing
buggies with big grins on their faces. An hour later she had had enough
and she trudged home through the cold fog. A single red rose greeted
her on her doorstep, she picked it up with a smile and looked at it, it
was gently frosted and glittered in the half light. How romantic and how
odd, she thought. Someone must have left it on the wrong doorstep,
she thought sadly to herself, as she let herself in to her flat. The heat
and her cat were waiting for her. Milo (her cat) purred as he wrapped
himself around her legs. She stooped to tickle him under the chin and
he blinked at her almost knowingly. He had been her closest
companion for about 3 years, since her ex-boyfriend had left to go
travelling and never came back. She held the rose preciously in her
fingers making the frost glisten in the harsh light of her flat, she
wandered down to her kitchen with Milo closely in tow behind. As she
walked through the dining room she heard the familiar sound of
giggling coming from next door. Her neighbour Sally was 'entertaining'
again. Oh great Mary thought another night of Barry White and no
sleep just what I need. She kicked off her shoes and almost smashed
her empty vase with the left one, how clumsy was she??
The cold stone of the kitchen floor felt good against her hot, tired feet
and she relished the relief of not having to wear her shoes for at least a
night. She banged the cupboards loudly as she made coffee and fed
Milo, she cranked the radio up to drown out the noise from next door,
this is the life she thought, coffee, a contented cat and cheesy 80's
music blaring on the radio. She sat on the chair in the kitchen and
thought about what to make for dinner. She shut her eyes and leant
back against the kitchen cupboard and when she opened her eyes the
first thing she saw was the rose on the side. It must have been one of
Sally's many men left it for her and just got the wrong house, I'll drop it
in tomorrow she thought to herself.
She put on a pan of pasta on and listened to the happy slurping of Milo
eating his tuna.
Mary had a great night planned, she was going to have a bath, curl up
on the sofa with a black and white weepy and some popcorn and a
happy cat. What actually happened is when she sat down on the sofa
with her bowl of pasta the pictures on the wall started to rattle and the
grunting from next door became almost unbearable, strangely she was
a bit jealous, Sally had the stamina of an Olympic runner and more
male friends than Mary had had in her life time. But this was ridiculous,
Mary stomped upstairs and clambered onto her bed, she stuffed her
headphones in and cranked up the volume to full. She woke up in the
morning to the soft purring of Milo and the twittering of the birds
outside.

There was a clatter of milk bottles on the doorstep which made Milo
leap from her lap and launch himself into the washing basket, it was his
safe haven when things scared him.

Mary stretched and realised she was still in the clothes from yesterday,
her brain processed the lack of noises and the fact it wasn’t Saturday.
She slithered out of bed and creakingly made her way down stairs to
the front door, why was she always so stiff in the mornings?

She yanked the door open and braced herself for the freezing cold, the
world outside was still and frosted with a sprinkling if while snow, in the
middle if the path there was a set of footprints pressed into the snow.
On the door step was two bottles of milk and a card with her name on
it. Must be an early Christmas card she thought. She picked up both
and took one last glance at the snow globe world outside. She went
back into the warmth and shut the door behind her, right, time for
coffee and cat food she thought. She put the milk in the fridge and
made herself the biggest cup of coffee she could. She ripped into the
envelope and pulled out a blank card, how weird, she opened it and
began to read the note inside, it said



My heart missed a beat when I saw you,
I knew you were the one for me.
When I looked into your eyes I knew
I could make you as happy as you make me.
I deliberated with myself and now
It's clear to see,
There is only one more question
Will you marry me?



That was all it said, no name, no markings on the envelope just the
card. It must be a mistake she thought, who would leave a card like
that for me? She thought of all the men she knew, there was knobbly
Norris at work who worked in the post room and was 54 with dodgy
hips and knobbly knees, there was Frank from the supermarket who
was 16 with braces and blushed when you spoke to him, there was
sleazy Steve who was as his name suggested a sleaze, a handful of
men not worth mentioning and then there was Rob. He was lovely! He
was not gorgeous but he was cute with dark green eyes and fluffy light
brown hair and a smile that could light up a room, he was also funny
and intelligent as well as the most popular man at Mary’s work. She re-
read the note and then dragged herself off to get dressed for another
day at dull work. Nothing exciting happened all day apart from sleazy Steve
came in looking sheepish after being caught groping the boss on
CCTV, that was something Mary never thought would happen as
Beatrice the manager was straight laced and boring. Apparently they
had a couple of glasses of wine after work to celebrate a deal going
through and then one thing led to another and they had a rather
embarrassing fumble on the desk which involved more flesh than a
whale blubber convention.

Mary spent most of the day with her head down working, trying to avoid
conversations with anyone from the company. At lunch time she
slipped out of the office and forced her feet to carry her to town where
she fought her way through the hordes of grannies in M and S to reach
the last very stale and almost alien looking sandwich. She grabbed a
still lemonade and a fat chocolate brownie and joined the shuffling
queue of silver haired wrinklies buying over priced cat food for their no
doubt fat moggies. She hasn’t thought about the card until now and
now she couldn’t think of anything else.
“That’s £6.23” said the bleached air head behind the counter snapping
Mary out of her thoughts. She wanted to say what should I do about
this random card I have been sent with a proposal? Do you think it is
genuine? A stalker?

Instead she handed over the money and scurried out. Back at work she
carried on working till she heard people walking past and realised it
was home time. She looked up at the door when Rob walked past, he
looked in and smiled before disappearing into the night. Mary sighed

 

 

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Copyright © 2005 L Jay
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"