Six Sentence Sunday

Today my six are from a short story ‘The Journey’, which I wrote for Writers on the Wrong Side of the Road. This anthology is an ‘alternative’ read in its broadest sense, having been given carte blanche to write whatever we liked. I remained true to the theme of complex women, a topic I also explored in 'The Path of Innocence'.

In 'The Journey', a wife and mother takes a train ride and is excluded from a spontaneous conversation between a group of nearby passengers. Their comments make her contemplate her own life, and spark a range of emotions – insecurity, indignation, antipathy – until the final delicious twist when we discover she is, indeed, a very complex woman.

Here, Melody is assessing her fellow passengers before the train moves out of the station:

‘Her gaze drifted to the man, already buried within the pages of a geeky tech magazine, eyes locked downwards, studiously avoiding eye contact. His green parka jacket was only half unzipped, but enough to reveal a sweatshirt with a Stargate logo emblazoned across the front. She regarded the wispy strands of hair, longish, yet not in a trendy way, the scant nanny goat beard that spoke of a failed attempt at overt masculinity... yes, definitely a geek.
The woman, too, made to pull a magazine from her bag and Melody squinted to see the cover – Cosmopolitan, she noted. A pair of feline green eyes lifted and caught hers with a cold, unreadable stare. Colouring, Melody twitched an uncertain smile which was not returned.’
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