Feel Good Story (1)
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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