Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Images of Love

Prompt:

You are moving a cupboard which is not yours and a roll of film falls out…...


“Sammy, help me with this will you?” Cathy called out down the staircase.

Samantha wiped her forehead leaving a smudgy mess, and wove her way round half packed boxes, bubble wrap and overful plastic bags.

“How does one person collect so much … stuff after only a few months? She wondered.

Cathy was struggling with a silky oak set of drawers as she arrived.

“ I thought that was Owens? Didn’t it belong to grandma or something?” Samantha ventured.

“Humpf! She gave it to me. Anyway – what would he want an old thing like this for? It’s not like he knows how to put his own clothes away.” Cathy replied venomously.

Samantha shrugged and bent down to help lift the bulky cupboard. As the girls lifted it, the ungainly weight tipped it sidewards, crashing it to the floor. A board cracked on impact, leaving a small fracture at the back of the headboard.

“Typical. Everything Owen touches turns to crap. He didn’t want me to have this and this is his revenge!” shouted Cathy.

“Sweety, calm down.” Samantha soothingly purred. “ We are just tired from all the packing and the cupboard was too heavy for us.” She painstakingly avoided mentioning that the accident had nothing to do with Owen. “Maybe we need to take a break and come back to this in a few hours. Owen won’t be back till tomorrow afternoon. So don’t panic, we will have you out of here tonight.”

Cathy sat on the floor and started to cry. “ Am I doing the right thing Sammy? He ignores me all the time. I don’t feel he even notices that I am here, so whats the use of even trying? Do you think he will even notice I have gone tomorrow?”

Samantha looked around. Most of the units furniture was stacked in the removal van downstairs. Books, CDs, pots and pans lay in disarray; half packed into garbage bags and boxes.

“He’ll notice.” She replied. “ Come on. I’ll take you to that new coffee shop in the civic centre. We’ll have a recharge and come right back”

Cathy looked up at her through her tears. “Ok.” As she stood, she absent mindedly tapped the cracked board back into place. “ Huh, it won’t go. Theres something stuck” she said digging around in the hole, Cathy pulled out a film canister.

“Well” said Samantha, “ Theres a blast from the past. Not many people have one of those old things any more.”

Cathy stared at it. Clumsily in “white out” was painted a heart and the words. “My True Love” underneath the canister , tiny words “in case of love failure – print”

“Its Owens writing. Whats he on about? Is this proof that he really doesn’t love me and these are pictures of his past and present lovers? Is that why he ignores me – because hes got so many women up his sleeve he just takes pictures of them and doesn’t have time to print them off?” Cathy was on a roll now, fuming and brewing madly.

Samantha snatched the canister away from Cathy. “Well its not ours and you don’t need to see whats on those photos. I’ll pop it into one of Owens backpacks, ok?”

Cathy began to weep again. “ I knew it. Hes been cheating on me the whole time. I’m glad I am leaving him. I just want to get out.”

Samantha put her hand on Cathys shoulder. “ Well technically, you haven’t left him. He has no idea what we are doing right now and is fully expecting you to be picking him up at the airport tomorrow. How about we go for that coffee and then get your stuff out of his unit.”

Cathy lunged for the canister. “ No! I want to confront him with his treachery. Lets develop these when we are out having our coffee.”

Samantha knew she was fighting a losing battle so relinquished her hold on the canister.

Over coffee and a sticky cake, Cathy fidgeted nervously and checked her watch constantly. “Do you think the photos are of Louise from accounting? I caught them with their heads together last week, so engrossed in their conversation that he didn’t notice me come into the kitchen at work.”

Samantha poked her chocolate cake with her fork. “It’s the end of tax year, Cathy. They work on the same account. I am sure it was just work related.”

Cathy glared at her. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

Samantha groaned. “ Obviously yours; but Owen is my brother. He can be an idiot sometimes, but I really can’t see him as a cheater.”

Cathy flounced out. “ We’ll see who the cheater is as soon as I pick up those shots.”

Samantha caught up with her at the photo developers. Cathy was slowly flicking through the photos. Tears welled in her eyes as she focused on each one. She handed the pack to Samantha.

“They’re pictures of us when we first got together. I thought we’d lost this film. Look how happy we are. Oh Sammy; I’m the idiot.” Cathy started to cry again. “ Can we go back to the unit now?”

Samantha put her hand on Cathys shoulder. “ Of course.”

“I’m thinking that the couch would look better on the left hand side. Maybe we could pick up a few scatter cushions before we go back to unpack?”

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

I know its not Friday - but I made a committment - to myself at least to publish ever week... so damn it I am...

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