The colour red
I’d only just stepped out the door and that damned neighbour who wants to know everyone’s business was there. Sally Knowles - Sally Nosey, I call her.
I turned my head away from her sight as I turned the key in the lock. If she sees only the left side of my face, perhaps I can smile and skip away, I thought. None of her business how I came by the red raw scrape on my cheek and the puffy red-turning-black bruise on my jaw and chin on my right side. A bashing. Is that what I’ll tell her? A knocking about by a tall handsome stranger?
Oh, the indignity! How will I get through the day? Straight into the car and out of town until dark.
‘Hi Penny. A beautiful morning!’
‘Hi, Sally. Sorry – got to go. In a hurry. See you.’
I scuttle down the bricked path and, oh no, another lock, a different key needed. I wish my car remote was still working.
I make it inside my snazzy, jazzy red love-of-my-life car and I’m safe at last. My reddened face hidden from view by dark tinted windows.
The engine turns over once and I’m away. Away on my own, with time to think about what a risky venture it had been and how I can avoid the violence next time.
Christine (CV) Williams
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