Sunday 3 January 2016

Angela











I carry Angela around with me everywhere I go.





To the untrained eye she's a ten buck lava lamp from Walmart. She's so small I can fit her in my pocket. She never complains.


Angela is the quiet type and is never quick to lose her temper, even on the rare occasion when I've dropped her. She's got a few scratches and I know she worries about that crack that is working it's way slowly up to the top. I blame the shakes. The pills do that to me.

But Angela understands. Sometimes she reminds me if I've forgotten a pill. She uses the blue bubbles for that. Three blue bubbles in quick succession. Pink bubbles mean she wants to be left alone and when she wants a cuddle she releases a red bubble, I don't see many red bubbles and that's how I know she is happy.




The cat got her once. The little furry bastard. Now she panics whenever he comes into the room. Clear bubbles are fear bubbles. And they only come out when the cat's about or when we are in a crowd or an elevator. She hates elevators. They remind her of home. At night we curl up together on the couch and she talks about home and walls and elevators. I calm her. I soothe her. I blow her my own red bubbles.




Five red bubbles in quick succession.







                                                                               (C) Ally Atherton 2016








235 words written for this week's Sunday Photo Fiction

15 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed this tale about bubbles and the meanings that they may have :-)

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  2. Very enjoyable story. Her and Angela help each other, and that's a good thing. The cat...that's a real problem for them.

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  3. Very enjoyable story. Her and Angela help each other, and that's a good thing. The cat...that's a real problem for them.

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  4. I see a hidden story within this story. Especially the sentence "The pills do that to me." makes me think there's something else going on—or maybe it's just because I used a similar concept in the first chapter of my web serial, so I might be just overthinking it...

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  5. I love how she has a relationship with her lava lamp. But, I think she might be a little off. Perhaps she isn't taking her pills properly. Great story!

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  6. I really like this. Communicating with the lamp by the way of bubbles. Ingenious :-)

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  7. A story and life by way of bubbles... Excellently told!

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