Today, I had the pleasure of reading a piece of flash fiction as part of the launch of the Jesmond Creative Writing Competition, organised by Victoria Watson with the aim of raising money for Jesmond Library, and inviting short stories on the theme of ‘bedtime stories’. I’ll definitely be entering, but for now, here’s the piece I read earlier… (I’m slightly concerned that everything I’ve written lately has had somebody dying in it. Ho hum!). Enjoy 🙂
“Just one more chapter”
How many times had she said that? It was never ‘just one more,’ whether it was the twins’ favourite fairy-tale, the latest thriller to hit the shelves, or even just the supermarket’s monthly magazine. Any form of words, and she just couldn’t put it down.
“Can you be addicted to words?” Jane mused, realising too late that she’d spoken out loud. Before she could hide the book and duck under the covers to smother the attached page-light, Tom was wide awake – he always had been a light sleeper.
“Jane, you promised,” he started, switching on the bedside lamp. “You said you’d try and fight it.”
And she had. She’d tried reading shorter books, but just ended up reading several in a night. She’d tried using her old Kindle, with the failing battery, but she cheated and read with it plugged in. She’d even tried watching film or TV adaptations, but all that did was make the need to read the original book even more urgent, to check the producers had got it right.
Nothing was working.
And now Tom was angry again, ranting about how she wasn’t really trying, how her constant reading was tearing them apart, how he couldn’t remember the last time they had actually had a proper conversation which didn’t involve one of her ‘stupid books.’
‘Stupid book?’ How dare he? Without thinking, she glanced down at the one she still held in her hand. Cradled, to be precise. How could he call this stupid, with its glorious leather binding, beautifully italicised title and weighty gold trim? Weighty gold trim that suddenly seemed oddly tarnished, spattered, you might say, with small flecks of red liquid. Where had they come from? No matter, she thought – Tom had finally stopped wittering on; she could read again. She would clean off the cover in the morning.
She must have dozed, however briefly, waking to find her room full of people she didn’t recognise, the twins standing, open-mouthed and confused at the door, a police lady with an arm around each of them. Their neighbour hovered on the landing, mobile phone and spare key in hand.
“If you’d like to come with us, Mrs Reece,” coaxed another female officer, standing nearer the bed, and offering a hand.
Jane’s thumb still kept her page.
“In a minute,” she protested. “Just one more chapter.”
Tales from the Notepad 