Still Life with a Peach





 Daffodils, a silver shoe and a peach sit on a packing-case before a group of elderly artists. Thea daubs lines on paper, tongue resting on her bottom lip.
      Remembered scenes flicker in her mind: flowers in a milk bottle, table covered in newspaper, underwear steaming on a clothes-horse by a range. Thea, the land-girl, prizes beet from frost-bitten ground, steamy breath mingling with morning mist.
     Her party shoes had been red, not silver. The girls helped colour each other’s legs with cold tea. Sometimes there were nylons if they danced with Yanks from the air-base, big and blond with wandering hands.
     Joshua was different, his shy smile and teeth white in the moonlight as he walked her home.  She shouldn’t have let him touch her but she loved him, his skin dark, his hands black velvet.
     ‘You have such pretty ankles, Miss Thea,’ were the first words he’d crooned.
      She locked him away; a secret in her heart.

A young girl approaches the easels.
     ‘Best look lively,’ Thea thinks, smudging red into the sketch of her shoe.
     ‘Lovely!’ pronounces the young occupational therapist.

Bored, Thea plonks the brush down and inspects the room. An old lady dozes before a television game-show, another knits a scarf that snakes around her slippers. By the window a dark-skinned gentleman plays Patience.
     She is peckish. Leaning forward she snatches the peach from the display and bites into it. Juice dribbles into the crevices of her chin.
     The card-player laughs, ‘Hey, Miss Thea…not going gentle into that good night? Good on ya, girl!’
     A small idea flares and fizzles in her brain like a damp firework as she stares into his smiling eyes, so crinkly and kind. He salutes her and after a moment she looks away to take another bite of her peach.

Angela Petch

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Comments

  1. angelapetchsblogsite.wordpress.com18 May 2019 at 16:17

    Many thanks for letting me be on here. I enjoyed writing this flash piece as I am busy with a novel of 100,000 words and this was therapeutic for me. What a wonderful opportunity for writers. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown18 May 2019 at 16:54

    Great piece, Angela and so descriptive. It feels like life watching life attempting to paint still life, we're all caught up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Susi J Smith21 May 2019 at 06:21

    I really enjoyed this story, very thought-provoking

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dr Karimi28 May 2019 at 10:08

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

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