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Authors: Sarah Salway
Tags: Fiction
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puzzling.
I thought they must have been trainspotters, but Sally listened to their conversation for a bit. It turned out that what they actually spotted was the stations. They rode on trains every day, choosing lines that took them through the most number of stations. Then they wrote the names down in a big book.
We couldn’t stop laughing. Every time we thought we’d got it under control, the train would glide past some deserted platform with one of those swinging signs, and we’d hear the shuffle of papers opposite us and we’d be off again. We were crying and making little squeaks like baby pigs. Sally’s nose was starting to run.
The men did look at us then. One of them even shrugged and spat out the word
normals
.
I asked Brian about this the next day. He said that a friend of his who sometimes liked to go trainspotting— well, anyway, this “friend” had heard that people who didn’t like trainspotting were called “Normals.” I couldn’t explain to Brian why I found this insulting. I just did.
He told me then that naturists—and another “friend” of his apparently has been known to go to nudist beaches—called people who wore clothes “Textiles.” He kept on about this for the rest of the day as if it were a joke both of us shared.
“How are you doing, Textile?” he’d shout across from his desk.
The trouble with Brian is that he doesn’t know when he has taken things too far.
See also Bosses; Firefighting; Glenda G-spot; Words; Zero
nostrils
Sophia found me crying in the ladies’ room at work. Of all the people to see me at my worst, she would be one of the last people I’d pick. It’s not just the fact that she is the company accountant. It’s her nostrils. They’re more on show than anyone else’s. It’s as if she’s put two fingers up her nose and turned it inside out. Her nostrils are long and stretched, and the skin’s boiled red inside. It’s difficult to look at Sophia and think of anything else. I would hate to see Sophia with a cold. Just the thought of it makes me feel physically sick.
Sophia took me by the hand and led me into her office. She put me in a chair in the corner of the room and just ignored me. Eventually, I stopped sobbing and stood up.
“It won’t be the last time it happens,” she said, barely looking at me. “And every time it does, you will think this really is the end, that this time you’ll never get back with each other, and your heart will break again and again until you don’t think you can bear it anymore. But I promise you that you’ve a long, hard journey ahead. You won’t be able to leave each other alone, and it will hurt just as much each time one of you decides that you must part.”
“How did . . .”
“Oh, I don’t know the details of your particular relationship,” she said. “But I do know about pain indexes, believe me. And men. He won’t be worth it. They never are.”
Then she handed me a mirror before going back to her columns of figures.
“You’d better freshen up,” she said. “You look a mess.”
I stared at my reflection. My eyes were puffy and red, but who was she to call me a mess? At least I have always been lucky with the shape and size of my nostrils.
See also Friends; Kindness; Wrists
nursing
If I could change just one thing about John, it would be the way he is always complaining about being ill. Last Monday, for example, he was moaning about a pain in his arm.
“It is either a strain from all the gardening Kate made me do over the weekend or the last stages of a cancerous tumor,” he whinged. I tried to take his mind off it, but I noticed he kept rubbing the spot and looking worried, as if he might die at any minute.
I told Sally about it. I shouldn’t have done that because she kept mocking John, rubbing her forehead and saying that either she was bored with talking about him or she was in the last stages of a terminal tedium. But then she had a good idea.
Now, whenever John
I thought they must have been trainspotters, but Sally listened to their conversation for a bit. It turned out that what they actually spotted was the stations. They rode on trains every day, choosing lines that took them through the most number of stations. Then they wrote the names down in a big book.
We couldn’t stop laughing. Every time we thought we’d got it under control, the train would glide past some deserted platform with one of those swinging signs, and we’d hear the shuffle of papers opposite us and we’d be off again. We were crying and making little squeaks like baby pigs. Sally’s nose was starting to run.
The men did look at us then. One of them even shrugged and spat out the word
normals
.
I asked Brian about this the next day. He said that a friend of his who sometimes liked to go trainspotting— well, anyway, this “friend” had heard that people who didn’t like trainspotting were called “Normals.” I couldn’t explain to Brian why I found this insulting. I just did.
He told me then that naturists—and another “friend” of his apparently has been known to go to nudist beaches—called people who wore clothes “Textiles.” He kept on about this for the rest of the day as if it were a joke both of us shared.
“How are you doing, Textile?” he’d shout across from his desk.
The trouble with Brian is that he doesn’t know when he has taken things too far.
See also Bosses; Firefighting; Glenda G-spot; Words; Zero
nostrils
Sophia found me crying in the ladies’ room at work. Of all the people to see me at my worst, she would be one of the last people I’d pick. It’s not just the fact that she is the company accountant. It’s her nostrils. They’re more on show than anyone else’s. It’s as if she’s put two fingers up her nose and turned it inside out. Her nostrils are long and stretched, and the skin’s boiled red inside. It’s difficult to look at Sophia and think of anything else. I would hate to see Sophia with a cold. Just the thought of it makes me feel physically sick.
Sophia took me by the hand and led me into her office. She put me in a chair in the corner of the room and just ignored me. Eventually, I stopped sobbing and stood up.
“It won’t be the last time it happens,” she said, barely looking at me. “And every time it does, you will think this really is the end, that this time you’ll never get back with each other, and your heart will break again and again until you don’t think you can bear it anymore. But I promise you that you’ve a long, hard journey ahead. You won’t be able to leave each other alone, and it will hurt just as much each time one of you decides that you must part.”
“How did . . .”
“Oh, I don’t know the details of your particular relationship,” she said. “But I do know about pain indexes, believe me. And men. He won’t be worth it. They never are.”
Then she handed me a mirror before going back to her columns of figures.
“You’d better freshen up,” she said. “You look a mess.”
I stared at my reflection. My eyes were puffy and red, but who was she to call me a mess? At least I have always been lucky with the shape and size of my nostrils.
See also Friends; Kindness; Wrists
nursing
If I could change just one thing about John, it would be the way he is always complaining about being ill. Last Monday, for example, he was moaning about a pain in his arm.
“It is either a strain from all the gardening Kate made me do over the weekend or the last stages of a cancerous tumor,” he whinged. I tried to take his mind off it, but I noticed he kept rubbing the spot and looking worried, as if he might die at any minute.
I told Sally about it. I shouldn’t have done that because she kept mocking John, rubbing her forehead and saying that either she was bored with talking about him or she was in the last stages of a terminal tedium. But then she had a good idea.
Now, whenever John
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