A Very Short Story

All my posts this season are “inspired by” a letter of the alphabet!

Perhaps it would be today. The eternal optimist, she woke up every morning thinking… Perhaps.

It was a good way to wake up, a positive way, as if every day were a new leaf of the book that was her life. The night would rub out the previous day’s failings like an Etch A Sketch, or like when all the shapes fell off a Fuzzy Felt.

She’d trained herself to do it. When it first started, it had been for something very specific. The day of the Christmas lottery. She knew it was more likely she’d be struck by lightning than win, or so people said when trying to equate probabilities. Needless to say, she didn’t strike gold, but she had a fun day wondering, what if?

But when she found that some mornings she awoke with little to look forward to, she made a conscious decision to imagine a different hope every day. It didn’t matter if it didn’t happen, she was never disappointed as she knew she’d have a new one tomorrow. It was a game. She enjoyed the anticipation she felt and it got her through the day of dull routine. Plus, if the thing actually happened, it made her laugh with unrestrained joy.

So, perhaps today, she’d think, I’ll see a pair of identical twins, or I’ll exchange a smile with a handsome man. Perhaps someone will call me… It never interfered with her life, but it made her feel excited that it just might happen. To begin with, it was passive, as she waited for every day’s imaginings to become a reality. They were out of her control, after all. But there came a day when it ocurred to her that maybe she should become a little more proactive. The routine of thinking of a perhaps was becoming exhausting, and while before, she had never been disappointed when her thought for the day did not materialise, now it was starting to get her down. So she began to think of perhapses as actions that were within her abilities but that she’d never had either the courage or energy to do. Perhapses turned into a goal for the day. Perhaps I’ll see a tiger, so off she toddled to a wildlife park. Perhaps someone will propose to me, so she spent the day trawling a dating app of men looking, very specifically, for wives.

Her imagination took her to ever more outlandish scenarios, so much so that once she took a week off work to follow a man with ginger hair she had seen in a café, on the basis of perhaps a ginger man will save my life. She imagined him heroically pushing her out of the way of an on-coming car, or something to that effect. It didn’t happen, but it had been fun, working out his routine and tracking his life. Some may have thought that she was verging on the psycopathic, or was it sociopathic…? But she didn’t see it that way. It was still a game, albeit somewhat more elaborate.

Then came the piece de resistance.

These perhapses were becoming so specific that it was harder and harder to choose a different one every day. They required planning. Even something simple like Perhaps I’ll come into some money. And so she made her five step plan. One: she would present herself as a volunteer at a retirement home. Two: she would get to know the residents. Three: she would offer to accompany them to the bank to help them with those pesky machines. Four: she would suggest that she could go to the bank for them, to save them the trouble.

Not all of them took the bait, but three did, and that was all she needed. She wasn’t looking for a fortune, it was more the excitement of her perhaps coming to fruition. Five: armed with nothing more than three bank cards, she withdrew their pensions.

And today, in her prison cell, she chuckles to herself, imagining her escape. Perhaps it will be today. Perhaps.

NEW PODCAST AVAILABLE! At link below and on Spotify

P is For…

Just a quick note on the Podcast: For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, Miguel Ángel talks about his perfect meal, which would be oysters with a glass of vermouth as a starter, carabineros (not the Italian police but similar to a large red prawn) with a glass of Albariño, (Galician white wine), followed by suckling pig. To finish off, a creamy espresso, and all in good company!