Wishing she HADN’T dunnit

Hattie sat in the dark at the wheel of her little red car and decided she might just hate the village, everything, and everyone in it – every man, woman, and blood-splattered child, the teeny-tiny shops, the little thatched cottages, the duck pond on the village green, the Lord of the Manor, the ‘Big House’, the small and perpetually cold stone church, the school of too many memories (with the hard, wooden seats), the war memorial, the neat English gardens and the wild, furze-and-heather-covered heathland beyond the boundaries.

It could all go to hell, ALL OF IT!

She checked her phone, hoping her editor had sent her a message telling her some disaster had happened, that was far more in need of her journalistic capabilities than this ridiculous wild-goose-chase murder. Maybe she hated her job, her life, her self…oh good GRIEF, she was getting maudlin…this had to stop.

Her runaway train of thought stopped abruptly as she saw Tom step out of a telephone box she’d thought was empty.

The evening had suddenly gotten interesting, and although she didn’t believe in signs, it felt auspicious, so she gathered her bag, notebooks, and phone (tucking it safely within the depths of her coat pocket, to protect it from harm) and quietly exited the little red car…stepping straight up to her ankles in a puddle she hadn’t noticed.

This chapter was brought to you by too-little-time-last-week, and Natalie Beech’s prompt AUSPICIOUS, which she offered me when I asked for people to ‘give me a CUE’.

Catch up with previous chapters, and check back here SO SO SOON, for the official Six Sentence Stories’ chapter, tomorrow.