No More Nonsense

She was sick of all the nonsense, all of it.

Her son, the used car salesman, had asked for even more money – more money!

On top of the gift she gave him at Christmas when she knew full well there would be nothing given in return.

This was the tricky thing about giving gifts. Yes, it was an accepted norm that the giving of gifts was indeed a nice thing to do – but so was the receiving of gifts, was it not?

When you give and give and do not receive it begins to feel a tad unfair – it begins to feel like nonsense, all of it. So, she decided it was nonsense.

No more would she give and give with no receiving. From this day forth she would only accept things.

The one hurdle with this new way of thinking was that she knew no one except her son and he was not the kind of person to be giving her things.

She kind of knew her postman on a ‘How do you do? Fine thanks’ basis but their exchange never went any further. Her son had once suggested she ask the postman out on a date – Pah! Could you imagine such a thing? She certainly wouldn’t, couldn’t and didn’t.

She wracked her thoughts as to why her son had conceived such a hair-brained suggestion. He must’ve wanted something from me, she thought – which was not beyond the realms of possibility as he was definitely one for taking whatever she had.

She had on occasion asked him to pick up milk, butter and bread from the shops. Instead he bought sweets, pocketed the change and went off and played video games! Then he had the cheek to ask to be picked up from the arcade!

She grew up in a time when it was the done thing to do everything for your children so she ended up sacrificing her own wants and needs and gave everything to her son – with little, if any, acknowledgement on his part.

So, that was that - no more giving. She sat in her chair on her porch and watched her letterbox, waiting for the mail to arrive. Sure enough, the postman came and they swapped pleasantries - but he had nothing for her but a bill for the power.

She refused to give money to ‘those crooks’ so in four to six weeks the electricity was cut off and she went to bed when the sun went down for there was not adequate light.

She could not boil her jug and she could not keep her food cold and her son would not come and bring her soup so she became quite ill.

When she felt the illness becoming serious she dug out her Will and burnt it, not wishing her meagre things and the money in the bank go to anyone, let alone to her son.

She climbed into bed that night and when the sun rose and morning came, she did not wake. The postman found her a few days later and, as stated and signed on a document buried at the far end of her attic, her body was donated to science.

The scientists dissecting her body found a rare and bitter enzyme which, when spliced with light, became a cure for a terrible disease.

The enzyme’s discoverers were awarded a prestigious prize and the survivors of the disease built a large statue of the woman in the big park in the city.

Her son drove past it one day on his way to the bank to ask for a loan for which he was declined. He tried to rob the bank but his efforts did not go according to plan.

In prison, over many years, he tried to write a memoir called Give and Take but he never got further than the acknowledgments section.