Quick As a Cut

An excerpt from ‘Whatever Happened to Jojo’

By Gabrielle Goldsmith

Quick as a cut would bleed the hope - that she had nursed in her heart like a sleeping tiger, that she had felt stir when she checked her appearance and the new turquoise brooch ( a present from ‘B’) – died. Died with the bloody screech of diamonds on glass. She left the nondescript terraced house that housed her bedsit (12 of us stacked on top of each other like empty trays at the bakers) and bundled straight into fog!

Fog, and before 6 am - Georgina pulled her coat close against the twilight of day. She stepped out to confront the galling reality of a community snoring in tension and steadied herself for the twenty minutes walk to the station (20 minutes and then half an hour on that smelly tube).

Her half hour passed reflecting the masks of others’ routine despair (at least I got a seat this morning) but the sun, pushing its way through the murk, feebly greeted her return to the surface in the City.

Georgina banished thoughts of the walls of grey tumbling from the sky. Like a willing lover, she prayed for God to turn the day to her delight. She spoiled herself with an image of ‘B’ (so pretty).

Quick as a cut might heal, she smiled, hope returning.

The Copyright of this post belongs to Gabrielle Goldsmith