I just came up with this on the spur of the moment after thinking about how little we actually think about how lucky we are compared to so many others so I just wanted to compare two very different characters-One loved, one hated-from very different walks of life.
Let me know what you think.
Roxanne's caramel skin was glowing. Her face was too but with exertion, not the late evening sun that was pouring between the rickety building and glancing off the cracked paving slabs that served as a pavement. Some of her black curls had escaped from her scarlet bandanna and was hanging in sweaty rats-tails down her back; leaving a damp patch.
By the time she reached the end of the long row of houses and emerged into a cobbled street with a disused textiles factory just visible in the distance, black against the blood red sky, she was panting and slowed to a stop, stumbling the last few paces. Flicking one of the ear buds in her ear out, Roxanne put her hands on the small of her back and stared around at the dilapidated buildings and rotting signs. She's been so engrossed in her running that she hadn't noticed that the sun, which had been high in the sky when she'd set off from Hollow End, was now setting, casting long shadows everywhere she looked.
Roxanne signed and glanced around her again before resting her hands on the slight swell of her stomach. At twenty-two and a half, married and two months pregnant she knew she ought not to be here.
But still, every time she pulled on her ratty running gear and let her legs take her wherever they wanted to go, she found herself here, in a squalid, filthy street, crushed with leaning houses and broken windows. The whole street smelt of decay and mould and really looked as though it was only still upright through magic which, she reminded herself, it probably was. Muggle architecture could only go so far.
But still, there was something about this street. Maybe it was the way it ended suddenly and became a perfectly ordinary Muggle street, with neatly aligned houses all painted a gentle white with beautifully planted gardens out front, or perhaps the way that it always seemed completely deserted even though hundreds lived in a twenty metre radius of the street. May e it was just the poverty surrounded by the comfortable middle class all around.
A small boy, six maybe, badly in need of a haircut, cowered, sobbing, in the corner as his mother and father shouted abuse at each other, almost coming to blows.
Roxanne frowned and shook away the image, she ought to be getting home.
The boy wrapped the over large coat he was wearing more tightly around himself and tried to crawl unseen from the room only to be forced to his feet by his father.
Roxanne stuck the ear bud back in and turned around, heading back down the street.
A stream of obscenities, spewing from the hook-nosed man's mouth, his son hanging his head, arms protectively held around his skinny frame.
Thump-thump-thump. Crack in the pavement. Gutter full of weeds.
A slap: A red hand print on his mother's face.
Broken window. Graffiti on the dustbins.
A wand drawn with alarming speed, the sallow faced women narrowing her eyes, a hasty curse, a bang.
A broken sign was hanging from a bent signpost so hidden by rust that she had previously always missed it. Casting a furtive look around her she leaned forwards and pulled out her wand, tapping the sign so that the rust fell aside.
'Spinner's End'
The man flew across the room to crash into a mildew covered sink and lay for a few seconds, stunned, before staggering to his feet, spitting out teeth and blood.
Roxanne didn't know the name, but still, it sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. Stumbling backwards, she cupped her swollen stomach protectively and stared down at it.
Eileen Snape left her bleeding husband there in the kitchen and pulled her son roughly by the arm into another room, slamming the door behind them.
Roxanne could almost hear the slam. Screwing her eyes closed tight, she stepped into nothingness.
Her child wasn't going to live like that...