Bite-sized excursions

"I don't understand why you stay when you say you hate it so much."

It was a statement that she had asked herself over and over again. She knew the reason. It was because there was nowhere else for her. And she was a coward, scared to set off on her own again, leaving a life behind that she knew, for uncertainty. There were times where she longed for the freedom of difference, a life where she was not measured in terms of who she was with - husband, kids. To start again, afresh! Yes!

But she also knew that in order to gain that freedom, it would have to be funded and she had relinquished that, for the ambition and pride of another.

She did not voice her thoughts. She hardly ever voiced her thoughts, because they had no value. They would be swatted away, just like this, like annoying insects, sent reeling into the glass, losing their grace with the impact.

Silence was where she dwelled, the silence of the thwarted.

He got up from the table and walked away.

"I've got to go to work. I don't have time for you and your moods," he said, throwing out his parting shot purposefully, a dart to wound and hang, like a tranquillizer on the haunch of a beast, in a circle of blood-coated fur.

She didn't think she'd been moody. Since when did talking about your feelings constitute moodiness? She realised that it was since she'd been with him. Before, in her relationships, she had been allowed to articulate how she felt inside. She'd enjoyed taking words to grant form to the essence of what she experienced. Like a magical inventor, taking something as arbitrary as a rippling and grabbing it so that it could be examined and pieced into something more had been something that she had always enjoyed. Now, her words trapped her, no longer given free flight, they hampered and chained her with their eagerness to be released, only she could not allow that, knowing as she did that they would perish like butterflies to ash in the heat of his miscomprehension.

It was respect, she realised, that was missing. Neither of them had it for the other. How to regain that? She didn't think they could. And so, here they were treading water, while the dark depths stretched below and the horizon was endless around them, drifting into nothingness.

*

She needed to walk and so, put on her coat and left the house, her home.

She closed the door, she stopped on the path and looked back at it. It was a nice house, solid. She liked the look of it. A child could draw it and do a good job with its symmetry and its chimneys.

She imagined a future away from this: a small cottage, with less bedrooms, and a rose growing round the door. A simple life where she could please herself. She felt the longing for it so palpably that it hurt.

Chastened, she started to walk, past the postbox, the bus shelter, the bland concrete block of flats with its railings and its patchy grass frontage. That's where she'd end up. Would she be happier? Or was she swapping one unhappy life for another?

She felt she could live without luxury - but was that true? She'd never been without it. Her life had always been so comfortable. Except for the stifling of her. She'd always had somewhere soft to put her bottom at the end of the day. Could she go to a launderette? Could she catch the bus? How unhappy was she? Were these appropriate gauges?

She felt so shallow and hated herself for it. Her pathway had brought her into the town and the library. She had books at home but she was suddenly enticed by the thought of shelves, filled with things that she respected: knowledge, wisdom, stories, words.

The doors swooshed softly as she entered and she let out a sigh of relief as she crossed the threshold and landed on carpet tile. It was the most calm that she had felt in weeks. She wandered to the shelves and scanned, letting her finger trail over spines, her head at a slant to read the titles.

As she made her way slowly down the aisle, the calmness was replaced by a confidence. This was her world. She could feel tension dissipating. This place - her space.

She surveyed the different places she could go, like she was at a travel agent's or facing the dial on a time machine: this place, that time, these people. Ruled out "dystopian". Romance? No, she was not in the mood for love. Regency? Costume and manners were not inspiring.

She selected a book of short stories, not a well-known author but with good reviews. Bite-sized excursions. Just what she needed.

She went to the counter, her library card in hand.

"You like short stories?" The man scanned her card and looked up at her. He had kind eyes. Lines emanating out, curving from their outside, deep and defined, made by laughter.

"Yes," she said and found herself adding, "although I wanted them for a change."

He smiled. "I know exactly what you mean. They're like little forays into other worlds, aren't they?"

She liked the way he spoke, liked the words he'd chosen. She found herself voicing her thoughts, freeing the idea she had.

"Yes," she agreed, enthusiasm leaking as she said, "Like bite-sized excursions."

She was surprised but most of all, gleeful with pride when he threw his head back and laughed.

"Bite-sized excursions!" He repeated her words, the lines round his eyes augmenting the kindness and smile of him as he added, looking at her directly:

"I like that."