Post by Emma Louise on Jan 18, 2023 16:21:15 GMT -6
The loft.
Boxes piled high full of junk and keepsakes stretching the length of the loft. A bicycle with one wheel lays across the joists above. Emma Louise stands carefully on the boards at her feet. Thin wooden planks that separate her from crashing though the ceiling. Emma moves carefully along the boards.
“Hello? Anyone up there.”
A voice from below shouts up.
“Donna? What the hell are you doing here?” Emma shouts down the entrance hatch.
“Heard you were moving out. Thought I’d pop along and see if you still had an of my shit.”
A head appears at the hatch.
“Donna, get the fuck down. Up here is dangerous enough for me never mind for someone six months pregnant. Last thing I need is having to explain to Tarquin why you went crashing through my living room ceiling.”
“I’ll sit on the frame edge. Happy? Keep you company.”
“Fine. I left my Ipod on the kitchen table. Beats talking to myself.”
Donna looks around the loft.
“Where did you get some of this shit?”
“Some of it my mum asked if I’d hold onto when she moved house. Some of it is accumulated junk I’ve never really had the heart to part with. See that?”
She points at a blue plastic box in the corner.
“That is full of toy cars my brother and I played with when we were younger. He’d love to have is grubby paws on that.”
“You’re not really a Barbie girl are you?”
“A life in plastic? It’s fantastic.”
“Ha ha ha.” She laughs sarcastically.
“I played with cars because my brother played with cars. When he played Ghostbusters, I did. When he got into wrestling, so did I. He didn’t get into Barbie so if I wanted company to play with, I had to play his thing.”
“Explains a lot. You’re not really ladylike.”
“I am ladylike. I‘m even wearing a skirt today.”
She demonstrates the black flare skirt she’s wearing.
“I think I’m finally beginning to understand you. And Brian said it would never happen.”
“Brian?”
Donna pats her pregnant bump.
“Brian? You sure? Could have sworn his name was Tarquin.”
“Nope. Brian.”
Emma lifts a plastic biscuit box and opens it.
“Shit.”
“What?”
Emma holds up a heart locket on a chain.
“Shit.”
“And there’s this…”
She moves her fingers and an old rusty key falls on the chain.
“I remember when you gave me this. You said I had the key to your heart.”
“You wore it for ages.”
"Wore it with pride. I liked having the key to your heart. You should probably have it back now. You can give it to Tarquin.”
“Brian.”
“Him. I know it wasn’t actually a key for your heart. What was it.”
“The flat I used to live in. I had the locks changed a while back and that’s the key I used before I changed.”
Emma reaches into the box again and pulls out a masquerade mask.
“I remember this. I wore it to the fundraising ball we went to. You’d been eating toffees for some reason and we kissed and I said it was the sweetest kiss.”
“I remember the next day. We went out for dinner and you fucked the waitress!”
“Oh yeah.”
Emma tosses the mask into a black trash bag.
“What are you doing?”
“I cheated on you. It’s a bad memory.”
Donna sighs and take the mask out of the bag.
“I remember this night. You had been eating bowls of strawberries all night. You ate the one they gave you. You ate mine and you even ate one that, to this day, I still don’t know where you got it. But when we kissed on the dancefloor, you still managed to taste of cola because of the damn Pepsi lip balm you had on.”
“I remember that lip balm.”
Donna holds up the locket and key.
“I even remember the day I gave you this. We were stood outside the cinema to see the Batman movie you had been going on and on and on and on about for the last six months.”
Donna looks in a box at her side.
“Em, not every memory is a bad one. A lot of the memories we shared were good. The ending was crap though.”
She picks up a photo from the box.
“Your cat. He died. His death is a bad memory. Just like our relationship died.”
“It’s a terrible memory. Both of them.”
“Yes. But every other memory you have of your cat is probably a good one.”
“I loved to cuddle him. He was a big tubby tabby and I loved to put my ear to his gut and listen to him purr. But I really miss him. Every picture I find of him makes me smile because of the memories I have of Auzzie but I can’t just climb down from here and go cuddle him because he isn’t here. I have memories of you that make me smile and laugh thinking of them. But I can not walk over to you and hold you like I used to because ‘we’ is as dead as my cat.”
“Em…”
“Actually, go. Climb back down and piss off back to Tarquin.”
“Brian.”
“Don’t give a fuck. Go to whoever he is. Just get the fuck from me. Yes I fucked our relationship when I fucked that waitress. I get that. But I don’t need or want to look at you and be reminded of how I fucked it. So take the mask, the locket and go. If I find anything else of yours as I pack up, I’ll get it to you.”
Donna opens her mouth to say something but heads down the exit hatch. Emma turns to another box. A moment later Donna climbs back through the hatch. He rattles her nails against a paint can causing Emma to turn.
“Just so you don’t get trapped in your own head.”
Donna sits Emma’s Ipod and headphones on the paint can and heads back down the hatch.