Short Story: Useless....?

Short Story: Useless....?

I heard somewhere that you should write about what you know. That must be why our local Writing Group have been set the task of writing a short story set in our home town. The trouble is I don’t know very much about anything and let’s face it nothing much happens in my life worth writing about. People glibly go on about how easy it is to write and how there is a story in everyone, but I think they are the sort of people who have never tried.

Neither can I find anything interestingsoking people and it’s supposed to be summer! Aldershot has definitely had it’s day. It used to be proud to be the ‘Home of the British Army’, but now I’m not so sure it is. Neither proud, nor the ‘Home of the British Army.’ The town centre is full of empty, boarded up shops and the only ones doing well are the charity shops and the cheap clothing stores.

Oh well. Ken always said that I was useless. Maybe he was right after all. He was always banging on about what the role of a wife entailed and how bad I was at it. I know that most of the time it was for my own good. It was true that I needed to learn how to cook, so the meals would be edible. Learn how to wash up properly, so I wouldn’t kill us by allowing germs to breed on the pots and pans. Learn how to be organised, so I would know where everything was, without turning out all the drawers and cupboards every time I needed something. He talked a lot of sense. Some of the time.

He was a very particular man. His motto was ‘everything in its place and a place for everything’. That tended to put me under pressure, I must admit. Trying to meet his exacting standards was wearing. It’s a funny thing, but the more particular he became, the more flustered I became. Some days he only had to look at me in a certain way and I would drop whatever I was carrying, spill the tea, or trip over something I had left out by mistake.

Goodness, that loud bang startled me! For a minute there I thought it was Ken coming in. But no, it was only my friend Jenny from next door going out. She must be going to pick up the kids from school. Now she has a nice home. Lovely and tidy, of course, but somehow nice and warm with a homely feel to it. She was always telling me not to worry, to calm down and that things would take care of themselves. Personally I couldn’t see how things would take care of themselves. I was brought up to believe that you had to take charge of your own destiny. So why had I allowed Ken to take charge of mine for so long?

We had rubbed along together for years and years in our own peculiar fashion. Looking back, things seemed to get worse after Ken had that bad virus. It affected his sinuses something chronic and he ended up not being able to smell anything. That made him extremely irritable. He said his food never tasted the same after that. He always liked the place smelling clean and fresh – but of course couldn’t smell the air freshener anymore. He used to make me spray it in front of him so he knew I’d sprayed it, even if he couldn’t smell it. He couldn’t smell the fabric softener on the sheets, so I had to make sure I ironed them, so he knew I had put clean sheets on the bed. He took to watching me cook, so he knew what ingredients I was using, as he couldn’t smell the curry power or the garlic and wanted to make sure I had the right blend of herbs and spices.

In a way though, it had the effect of taking some of the pressure off me. If I burned the toast, he couldn’t smell it, so wouldn’t roar down the stairs about me being bloody useless as usual, wasting his hard earned money. If I decided to have the odd sneaky fag, he couldn’t smell it, so didn’t launch into a diatribe about me trying to kill myself and him into the bargain through passive smoking. Not to mention the inquisition about where I had managed to get a fiver from to afford to buy the bloody things in the first place.

Jenny started to notice the difference in me. She said I was less wound up and nervy and wondered if I had gone to the doctor after all, to get those pills she was always on about. In fact I had gone to see that nice Dr Raj, at the Health Centre at the top of town, who prescribed Prozac to make me less anxious. He did warn me about the dangers of taking too many. If I wasn’t careful they could make me very sleepy and forgetful, he stressed. So I had to be vigilant and keep to the prescribed dose.

But as everyone knows I’m a bit dippy, useless and irresponsible. After all Ken had told everyone often enough. I kept forgetting how many tablets I had taken and when I had taken them.

When the accident happened, I was happily drinking tea in Jenny’s large, comfortable warm home while watching the kids play. I was completely oblivious to the fact that I had left the gas hob on and the door to the hallway open, causing a draft, which blew out the flame. So when Ken came home from work he couldn’t smell the gas. He turned on the kitchen light and blew himself and the kitchen to smithereens.

Everyone was very sympathetic. I told them that I didn’t know how I would cope without Ken. After all he was my rock, the man who made sure I did everything I should in the way I should. How would I ever manage without him?

Dr Raj wondered if I needed anymore tablets to help me through the grief and shock. But I said I needed to be strong and would try and manage without them in future. I told him I had a few tablets left in case I needed them. I looked when I got back home. There they were in the bathroom cabinet. A nice pristine bottle of pills, with the seal still intact. I got rid of most of them down the toilet. I just kept a handful back, as I had promised Dr Raj I would take one if I needed it.

I’ve found that life’s a bit different now. I can do the things I want to do for a change, without Ken stopping me. Telling me there would be no point, as I’m useless at just about everything. So, that’s how I cam to join the creative writing group at Aldershot Library, and why I’m sitting here trying to write a short story about my home town.

Still, this writing business is a bit difficult. Especially when you’re the sort of person nothing ever happens to. And live in a place where nothing ever happens. At least, nothing that I could ever write about.