Summer Ghost Story
Melissa was old, and she was hot, so very hot, she was sure that the summers had not been like this when she was young, young like the girls around her. How she envied them in their cool looking garments but they barely covered anything and she just had to dress properly, the way she always had done. Her patent leather shoes with their slight heel tapped gently as she shifted one foot at a time. Echoed by the harsher tap of her two walking sticks. The ground felt jarring these days when she walked to the shop but then it was all concret now, she remembered the dirt tracks, how on a day like today her heels would have sent up little puffs of dust as she walked.
She wanted some new cloths but they were so hard to find these days, there had been a market she recalled, one she loved so much with all the newest styles on racks and racks, so many all made near the local cloth mill. She tottered onwards joints creaking and aching and oh how she wanted to rest. Then she saw the girl in the long buff coat, so stylishly cut.
‘Excuse me?’ Melissa said in a small cracked voice, the girl stopped, polite, her dark hair swooping in a now archaic way. ‘Were did you get that coat?’ it was such a fine thing and even though the sun was sweltering Melissa was envious.
‘There’s a new market just down that way,’ the girl said gesturing, Melissa thanked her and headed onwards at her slow and exhaustive pace, they must have re-opened the old market ground she thought. It seemed to take an eternity and her heart was feeling strained, it hurt every few pumps and the world was a little misty at the edges, she should stop and rest but she was almost at the market.
Odd that the steps to them were still covered in briar and leaves, sighing she sat upon them, it was uncomfortable but she would fall if she did not rest. The smell of doughnuts wafted out towards her, and she smiled faintly, Alex had bought her a doughnut there hadn’t he?
Her eyelids began to droop and she wondered if she should move but a deep blanket of fatigue pinned her where she sat, she dreamed of days of clothes and boys. She missed her friends Joyce and Rosemary, long dead now. A gentle whisper awoke her, ‘Melissa are you coming or not?’ Alex was always impatient it was why she had not married him.
She stood up, straightening her skirt, for a moment she had a feeling that she should be using sticks but she couldn’t see them and she felt fine, shrugging her shoulders she followed Alex into the market. It smelt of new.
Posted: Sunday, July 8th, 2012 @ 2:20 pm
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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