Daily Prompt 355
Glasses
Did you write something to today's prompt? If so email it to thecreativesjournal@zohomail.com.au with the subject line Daily prompt 355 for your chance to be featured below.
Slip
by Bethany Cody
The table is a cluttered mess. Dirty cheese knives lay carelessly on the tablecloth, stray olive seeds are scattered over the rumpled pattern like shrapnel, still covered in the stubborn flesh your teeth can't quite get at. Ginger eyes the chaos sorely from the doorway knowing she'll have to sort it out sooner or later. Shuffling into the morning light shining through the kitchen window she's aware of the persistent throb of her heartbeat and pressure building behind her eyeballs. She reaches for the medicine drawer in her cupboard, downing a few small pills with a glass of frigid tap water. When empty, she holds the glass to her forehead for a long moment.
Ginger's memory brightens and dims throughout the day as she tries to recollect the night before. She remembers most the taste of hearty red wine and the sound of her friends' laughter. Each time they visit for dinner she finds it easier to join them in smiling, swapping stories and jokes. Eight months ago it seemed impossible. Her husband of fifty years was heading out on a fishing trip with their grandson. They were on the highway east of the city when a truck collected their car, dragging them for several metres before coming to a fraught and final stop on the shoulder of the road. Neither her husband nor grandson survived and Ginger found herself suddenly alone. It took some time before she felt steady enough to invite her friends to the house for company, comfort.
By late afternoon she finishes tending to the backyard garden and retires inside, seating herself on the saggy blue couch to mindlessly watch TV and eventually falls asleep. When she wakes the daylight is gone. She sleeps longer than she means to and misses her favourite show. It's happened twice already this week. Pressing her hooked finger on the remote, she shuts the TV off and shuffles into the dimly lit kitchen. Her ankles ache as she begins to clear the table, lining the empty wine bottles on the countertop and unscrewing the lids so she can rinse them. The deep green glass cools her hands and she shivers in her thin, loose fitting shirt. She can see the moon from the window, or just enough of it without her glasses to help define the glowing, milky crescent.
The back door is difficult to open with her arms full and she struggles for a moment, her fingers slipping on the door handle before she huffs in frustration.
"Oh, stuff it."
She places two bottles on the ground at her feet and opens the door with her free hand before slipping through the gap. Night air is frosty, nipping at the exposed skin on her face and arms. She takes tentative steps in her maroon slippers, guessing more so than seeing the path to the outside bin. The verandah light went out months ago and she hasn't replaced it yet. They only lived together in the home for a year before her husband passed and she finds herself still settling in, making a home here among the gum trees at the base of Black Hill.
A car backfires a few streets away and Ginger startles, her grip falters and several bottles fall from the sodden cradle of her arms, breaking on impact at her feet. The sound of smashed glass and dogs in backyards barking fill her small courtyard and for a second she's stuck. She doesn't know what to do, she can't see anything. She lifts her foot and steps forward, hears the crunch and grind of glass beneath the sole of her slipper. She keeps going and in only a few paces the arch of her foot settles on something curved and unstable and the ground disappears beneath her.
Ginger lands on her face, her hands too slow to react and unable to stop her fall. Her cheekbone is cut and bleeding, dusted with shards of glass. It's in her hair, the surprised cavern of her mouth, her eyes open to the eerie darkness. Tears come slowly when she realises what's happened, when she realises she hasn't got the strength to lift herself up. Several minutes pass while she weeps on the hard cement, her hip stinging with pain, her hands uselessly shifting over the jagged glass. She hears the soft call of an owl in a nearby tree and wonders if it can see her, if it's watching.