Tag Archives: Story

Sarah – 1

25 Monday Apr 2016

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“Please join us for the fireworks, Sarah. It’ll be a lot of fun.” Chris was being persistent in his attempts to encourage Sarah to join a small group of friends who had been hanging at her house and decided to go to check-out the Canada Day firework display.

“Alex will be disappointed if you aren’t there. He’s really hoping you come.”

Sarah and Alex had been spending a lot of time together and had had started texting regularly. This might seem like no big deal but this was back in the day when every text message cost you and there was no such thing as unlimited. If you were texting, it meant that someone meant enough to you to pay per flirt.

But, Sarah just wasn’t feeling it. She didn’t want to be out and around a bunch of people. She liked Alex well enough, but the truth was, she was in love with someone else.

Tonight she was feeling particularly melancholy after having a great evening with Alex and their friends, because she spent the entire time wishing Ben had been there, not him.

Alex was great. He was funny, intelligent, artistic, athletic and kind. He was slight of build which was not really her taste, but had a smile that could light up an entire city. They would talk about movies and art and he would share with her his dreams about becoming a famous photographer. There was something exciting about him and she liked being around him. She wanted to have his energy and thirst for life.

Alex had taken a summer off school and biked across Canada, a thought that would keep her up at night. She wanted to have the guts to try something like that, but felt overwhelmed that she wouldn’t know where to start.

A night of fireworks could have been the perfect setting to take their relationship up a level. This is what was in Sarah’s mind as Chris continued to beg her to join them. And this is why she said no.

She was in love with Ben and didn’t want to have a romantic evening with anyone but him. Chris saw that he was fighting a losing battle and finally left her to join the crew. She clung to her tea cup and listened as the sound of the group of revelers grew further away from her.

She sat in the kitchen for, nearly fifteen more minutes, in the silence, staring at the mustard coloured wall and then towards the entrance to the kitchen, hoping that, at any moment, Ben would walk through the door.

He never did.

The Diet Pepsi that almost Wasn’t

08 Friday Apr 2016

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Just a funny, little, tale about my morning so far. Written for a friend who shares my affinity for drinking Diet Pepsi in the morning instead of coffee.

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I debated with myself whether, or not, I wanted to stop at the Tim Horton’s on my way to work this morning. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I would stop, because I really wanted a Diet Pepsi to kick-off Friday and the expectation of a great weekend.

I entered Tim Horton’s excited and expectant to enjoy that cold, sharp, biting fizz of the Diet Pepsi.

I ordered a breakfast sandwich and the lady said to me “would you like a drink with that?” to which I replied “oh, yes. A Diet Pepsi, please!”

Another staff member, upon hearing my request, went to the fridge and began to search for a Diet Pepsi.

“We don’t have any”, she declared.

My heart sunk into my shoes.

The woman serving me at the counter repeated the bad news: “We don’t have any. We have 7up?”

“No, thank you” I said mournfully.

And then, I got an idea. Perhaps, just maybe…

“Are there some in the back?” I asked, with a glimmer of hope in my voice.

The lady at the counter shook her head and added “No, the truck just arrived”.

My shoulders collapsed and my chin shrunk down towards my chest.

I paid for my sandwich and moved to the side to wait for it. As I waited, I was determined to not let it bring me down. I was also plotting alternatives. I opened up my change purse and began to count to see if I had, at least, enough to get a can of Diet Coke from the vending machine at work.

$0.95

Darn it.

‘Oh, well’, I thought, ‘I’m not going to let it get me down.’ And I returned to humming a song I had heard earlier while cuddling with my son.

SLAM!

The sound of something heavy being dropped to the floor pulled me out of my reverie.

‘Could it be?’ I thought to myself.

‘Did they just bring in…’

“We have it now.” A voice breaks-in to my thought and I see, standing before me, such a glorious site. A Tim Horton’s employee standing there, case of Diet Pepsi in her arms, welcoming me to come and partake of the bounty.

“Do you want some?” The sweetest words I’ve ever heard.

“Oh, yes, please!” I exclaim with, perhaps, just a little too much joy. “May as well make it two since I’m using my debit card” I add, trying to appear level headed and rational about it all.

She began to put the information into the register, an obvious look of amusement across her face.

Feeling the need to justify my intense reactions to the events of the last five minutes, I say: “Some people drink coffee in the morning. I drink pop.”

“Good for you” she replies, with the trace of a chuckle in her voice.

Deciding now to just embrace the craziness of being as desperate as I was for a morning Diet Pepsi, I say: “Thank you. You have made my day”.

And with a happy heart, and two bottles of Diet Pepsi in my bag, I headed for work, enormous grin on my face the entire way.