Write...Edit...Publish February challenge -- Back of the Drawer. My #flashfiction, The Avalanche

Howdy!

January has scuttled off into history and here we are, February 2017! Un-be-liev-able! February is kick-off month for WEP (Write...Edit...Publish) where a friendly group of like-minded bloggers astound each other and random readers every second month with wit, wisdom, talent, sincerity and dexterity, depending on choice of subject.

February WEP is entitled 'Back of the Drawer'. Wide open to interpretation and genre. Everyone's welcome to have a crack at it. It's too easy. 

We accept flash fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photo essays, artwork...1,000 word limit (but who's counting?)

We offer an Amazon gift card of $10 to the winner (sorry, folks, that's all we can afford on writer's incomes) and fabulous badges to the winner, runner up and an encouragement award. These visual delights created by Olga Godim, badge-maker and cover-maker extraordinaire, can be posted on your blog to show everybody your brilliance!

As per usual, I've gone the flash fiction route. Sit back and giggle along. I guarantee you'll be reaching for the duster if you make it to the end...

All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to a real person is deliberate. 

The Avalanche

I’m one of those people who can’t throw anything away. You’ve seen me on telly. I'm called a "hoarder". They say I'm suffering from anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Whatever.

They don't understand that having my things around me makes me feel safe, secure, euphoric. Woooooo! But. God. I’m shaking when I remember this, but recently my husband gave away a box. Our daughter was moving out and needed some things.

I was furious.

Ranted.

Raved.

No. One. Takes. My. Stuff. Pfft!

When I came home from work, I noticed straightaway that a box was missing. How, you might ask? Well, every day I check my stuff when I leave and when I return. The coffee cups he gave away were in that bright orange box of six I bought in the sixties. The illustration on the side showed the cups were orange stonewear with lime green stripes. I’ve never opened the box, but one day I might need them.

My husband told my daughter to bring my coffee cups home.

And she did.

Ungraciously.

She’d opened them! I ran for my packing tape as soon as she was out the door.

***

Today I worked overtime at the warehouse when the fork lift driver who relieves me didn’t turn up. 

By the time I get home, I'm in a high state. My stuff’s been untended for ten hours. There’s construction in our street. My boxes will be covered in dust…again.

I drink one restorative glass of bubbly after another, loving the pretty French wine glass from a new set I just opened. My old glasses finally carked it. Well, I do like my after-work swig. But the euphoria of opening that box that was three layers down for, what, twenty years! I recall the trip to the Champagne region where I bought boxes and boxes of the glasses over my husband’s protests.

‘Rachael, Rachael, think of the excess baggage charges!’ Pfft!

He doesn't understand. I have to collect things or I’d go crazy.

Drinkies done, I wobble to the spare room vacated by my daughter and hunt for the stepladder. It’s not easy, cuz I’ve been on a spree. I have this eight by twelve space to fill. There was a linen sale in town yesterday and I went crazy seeing all those gorgeous Moroccan-styled bedspreads. 

I go to the corner where I’ve stored them and pat the boxes. My husband better not think he's giving them to our daughter. I know she doesn’t have much, but she’s not getting my stuff. Why did she have to move out anyway? 

Kids these days.

I slip my hand under my daughter’s old creaky bed and pull out the little box of drawers I hide there. These treasures got me started. My husband would rant if he found it. And my daughter hasn’t done a day’s housework in her life so no chance of her finding them. She says she can’t work in a junk house. Junk house! Youth is wasted on the young! Pfft!

I plonk down on the threadbare carpet and open my box of odds and ends right at the back of the tiniest drawer. I’m not sharing this stuff with anybody. It's mine, mine, mine.

I pull out the napkin, now falling apart, but I can still read the poem my first lover wrote me when we were celebrating Valentine’s Day at Billy Bob’s. The words don’t quite rhyme, but they still make me cry when I read them.

"Will you be my Valentine?

The answer my friend

Is blowing in the wind."

(((sniff, sniff))) I still miss Willie. He blew off in the wind shortly afterwards.

Then I find the "Dear Rachael" note from my next lover who said he’s leaving me cuz I’m not right in the head. That really hurt. Then there’s the rusty old hotel key from that dirty weekend with Krispin. I don’t know why I want to be reminded of that disaster, but that's what happens when you can’t throw anything away.

Without my stuff, I wouldn’t know who I am.

I close the lid and slide it back into the bottom drawer. My daughter’s only been gone a month and already my stuff is growing up the walls, on top of her dresser, even in her bathroom. Soon, I’ll love this room as much as I love my living room, my kitchen and my garage. Surrounded by my stuff, I’m so happy. I’m never happy in the bedroom, though, because my mean husband won’t let my stuff grow in there.

‘We’ve gotta have one room in the house where I can breathe,’ he’s always said. Just yesterday when he left for work, he waggled his finger. ‘If you ever put stuff in there, I’m outta this tip.’

It’s getting late. He should be home. Maybe he’s found the stuff I hoarded in the back of our wardrobe. I tossed out some of his old shoes and suits to make room.

Why isn’t he home?

I need to move some of my stuff off the stove so I can throw dinner together. He rolls his eyes if I haven’t got dinner on the table when he walks in.

Where could he be?

I go to the kitchen, but I’ve forgotten to dust my stuff. Back in the spare room, I pat my new boxes, then drag the stepladder into the kitchen which gets the worst of the construction dust. I move to the living room, but it’s so full of my lovely stuff I can’t quite reach the top of the pile. I stand on a tall box of wooden toys I’ve bought in case my daughter ever has children. 

Damn. 

It’s flimsy. 

Everything comes from China these days. It wobbles under me. I lurch to the side, but there’s nothing to grab except boxes. I end up horizontal under a ton of stuff with boxes raining down on me.

Plop! Thud! Flop! 

How will I ever pack them right again? Ouch. That hurt. My poor head. Probably the box of tools I’ve been hoarding for my husband in case he turns handy. Then more boxes, and more... Another bang on my head. Oh, sweet boxes, don’t do this to me.

I’m completely squashed. I’m buried in an avalanche like those poor people in Italy last week. I hurt. All over. I can’t...breathe. I’ll have to conserve oxygen until my husband comes home.

I’m drifting into unconsciousness, then a terrifying thought hits me.

‘What if he found my stuff in the bedroom?’ 

Pfft.

WORDS: 1091 - sorry, but it was so fun you didn't notice, right?

FCA

With thanks to songwriters: Chely Wright / Liz Rose, for your inspiration. And a young friend who told me the coffee cup story (her mother is a hoarder).

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Thank you for reading!