2001 series 1 (part 1)
As best I can remember, the following snippets were last online in 2001 (under a pseudonym; most of my writings are). They were little sections I thought of but couldn't seem to make into anything longer. Originally there were going to be 150 but either I lost some or never finished transcribing from handwritten copies. So there aren't that many now, but I will split them across a few pages anyway.
1.1 once upon a time
Once upon a time there was a woman who had a beautiful baby. Everyone remarked on the beauty of the child. The woman herself thought the baby looked too much like her father when sleeping. The woman was surprised everyone thought her baby was beautiful, but she agreed with them. She didn't want them to know what she was thinking.
The woman and her baby lived by themselves in a small apartment. The woman's mother came to visit to spend time with her grandchild. The baby's father did not visit often.
The little baby did become beautiful to her mother very quickly and everyone said how she looked like a doll. The baby was very sweet to be with and she smiled a lot. She was very strong and could hold up her head by herself when she was seventeen days old.
The woman tried to be a good mother. She tried to follow all the advice she was given. It was still too hard. She would wheel the baby around in her pram and squint in the bright spring sunlight and wonder how she would make it from day to day. She felt like she was drowning.
1.2 the first death
The first time a natural death touched her personally she was 15. She didn't know the boy well because he was in the year below her but her friend Deeja had a huge crush on him and was always talking about him and pointing him out at the bus stop, so she knew who he was.
The boy had a heart condition and one day some rough-and-tumble went too far. The boy keeled over in a classroom and was DOA in hospital.
She went to the funeral even though she knew she had no right to be there. The boy had been friendly with many of the other students, in his year and in others, but she had not been among those friends. She was on the fringe, friendly enough, but not one of The Friends. She went to the funeral because she thought it would be good for her to do so. Death in her immediate family would be a long time coming.
1.3 rain
She remembers red gum-boots with black leopard spots. She had those when she was seven and she wore them to go horseriding. Later there were plain black gumboots and a blue raincoat. She didn't like wearing the coat and boots when she was older. She didn't mind having an umbrella.
Now she has three umbrellas, a tartan one that is her favourite, a compact blue one which was a present from a long-ago boyfriend, and a faded grey-and-orange striped one that she can't bear to throw out, even though it's all rusted and trailing threads, because it matches the pram she used when her baby was small. She still has the pram, too, although it sits in the laundry unused now and gathers cobwebs.
Rainy days are not what they used to be.
1.4 adventures of a blue umbrella
She took the blue umbrella to a party when she was twenty. It had been a wet weekend and she didn't want to get soaked in transit. It was quite a trek from her house to the party.
She got very drunk at the party and went off with a guy she'd had a crush on in high school.
He wanted to take her home but she couldn't remember where she lived (because she was drunk). She got home eventually, somehow, but forgot the blue umbrella, left it on the floor of the car.
She was anxious about the fate of the umbrella all week. She cared more about keeping the compact blue umbrella than she did about what people might be saying about her 'reputation'.
She was able to get the umbrella back although it meant seeing the guy again. He was always so up himself. She still cringes to think about it.