Just something my best friend and I (LB) decided to do after suffering Ashes to Ashes withdrawal symptoms. We own nothing, except the stuff that came from our imaginations. All reviews gratefully accepted. Hope you enjoy.
Alex stood alone in her flat, the noise from Luigi's downstairs seemed like a million miles away. She stared intently at the calendar on the wall…October 10th…October 10th 1981, the day that had changed her life once before, had again become the worst day of her life in this purgatory she found herself in.
The tears started to flow again as she thought of the day's events; the images were no longer flashbacks, distant childhood memories distorted by time. She had watched in sickening horror her father, the man she had worshipped in childhood and placed on a pedestal in the years after his death, knowingly murder his wife and himself. Tears blurred her vision now as she thought about getting out of that car, chasing after the balloon. She remembered that she had instinctively got out of the car when she saw the balloon as a child, she had never really thought about the reason why before. At this moment, for the first time in her life, she wished that she had stayed strapped into her seat as she was supposed to, the pain ached throughout her entire body and she felt that she could no longer cope with this living nightmare. The childish resilience that she had the first time was long gone and now she had to face up to the true horror of the events, entirely alone. Alex wiped her eyes with the cuff of her jacket as she turned towards the TV hoping an image of Molly, her only daughter, would appear to comfort her.
The noise from Luigi's grew louder now as Alex reverted out of the trance she had been in. She regretted leaving and she wished she had stayed with her 'constructs'. She knew that at times she acted insensitive, superior and even cruel to her colleagues; she justified her actions because this imaginary world was inside her head, and it was her body's way of dealing with the trauma of being shot. Now as she stood alone she wanted so much to be drinking…numbing the pain with them…with him. Alex had seen from the look on his face that he had sent her upstairs to bed out of concern. She realised that her actions today must have cemented the idea that she was 'Mrs. Fruitcake' to him. How could she explain that she wasn't as loopy as he thought and that everything she had done was for a reason, but she had failed.
The night was so long, Alex had tried to sleep but her mind wouldn't let her. She stared relentlessly at the clock willing the hours to tick by. He had been there…How could he have been there? He was part of her subconscious, a figment of her over-active and very vivid imagination, but she had seen him shield her younger self from the blast and carry her away to safety. She told herself over and over that she would have remembered him despite being so young, she would have remembered him. Alex dragged herself out of bed and headed for the shower, it was far too early to even think about getting dressed let alone going into work, but she couldn't mope around the flat any longer, she couldn't cry anymore and where better to take her mind off it then going to work…going to him.