Monday 12 April 2021

Angrily Packing Carrots at The Organics in Lampeter.

(Idea for Flash Fiction suggested kindly by Susan Barsby)


Angrily Packing Carrots At The Organics In Lampeter. Still Quietly Fuming At Being Dumped The Day Before In A Car Park Behind Marks and Spencer. Embarrassed At Having Sobbed So Pathetically And Publicly. Especially With It Being His Mother’s Birthday Too. Relieved At Now Not Being In Bad Books For Forgetting Said Birthday. Irritated By Constant Airplay Of Michael Bolton at Full Volume on Work Radio. Secretly Thrilled On Some Level To Find Heartbreak Is Intense Experience. 

Amused briefly by Antics of Co-Worker With Amusingly Shaped Carrot. 

Quietly Eating Lunch Alone In Dark Corner Of Canteen. Hoping Shamefully To Look Deep And/or Traumatised in order to Elicit Sympathy from Co-Workers. Hopefully the Devastatingly Attractive Brunette on Courgettes. Lonely Quiet Lunch Completed Without Sympathy.

Angrily Packing Carrots Again. Staring At Watch Discretely Only To Find The Days After Heartbreak Move Slower Than Before. Reminded Brutally That A Wedge of Raw, Organically Grown Carrot Entering Fingernail Below The First Tideline Is Actually Really Painful. Glad Of This Distraction From Her.

Taking Final Break On Small Hillock Outside Work. Hoping That Stance With Can of Diet Coke From Behind Is Reminiscent In Some Way of That Painting by Caspar David Friedrich. Smiles Smugly At Inner Cultural Life. Cannot Imagine Any of Colleagues Would Know Who That Painting Is By Or Indeed Who Caspar David Friedrich Is. Remembers That This Smugness Is Not A Nice Thing, Might Even Be One of The Many Failings That Led Him To Be So Publicly Dumped Yesterday.

Remembers Crying. Remembers The Happy Times. The Smell of Her Hair, Some Expensive Shampoo or Another. The Feel of Her Olive Skin Against His In Their Student Flat. Remembers He Will Not Have That Experience Again. Remembers Crying. Hears Colleague Shouting His Name. Wipes Eyes.

Angrily Packing Carrots at the Organics In Lampeter. Angrily Packing Carrots at the Organics In Lampeter. Angrily Packing Carrots at the Organics In Lampeter. Angrily Packing Carrots at the Organics In Lampeter.