The Lilacs on the Mantelpiece

Short story, written at the dentist

The summer had given way autumn prematurely, the fruit souring on the branch beneath the unforgiving rain and the flowers withering beneath the weight of the cold. Not that you’d have known so in the concrete grate of tarmac and the taste of oil that ran in the city veins.

Yes. Here, there were two seasons, the hot season with the burning skin and the sharp gravel, and the cold wet rain that filled the city and drummed against your bones until you ached. Impossibly warm, then impossibly cold. Much, Hannah mused, like her marriage.

The suddenness of it all was what the most painful to her. The ring had barely warmed against her finger before she found herself pulling it from herself in a fit of saccharine anger at the irony of it all. He had rolled his eyes, bored and silent by her performance, turning back to his papers. He was tired of her. A nuisance, a nuisance that unfortunately become stuck to his rent, bills and evenings. The first wife lingered in the painting by the lilacs on the mantelpiece, watching her, smiling with an aristocratic glee. “Must you stand there like that?” he had stated dryly, not bothering to look up. “It’s really very tiresome.”

“Oh, you’ve noticed that I’m here, then.” she said bitterly, suddenly aware of having too many limbs…