The shelves were lined with colorful glossy front covers that boosted screaming titles. Ivy stood before them, trying to pick out any that would interested her from the photos and words. Ignoring the ones aimed heavily at men, she looked at the women’s ones.
Celebrity names, Ivy knew or half knew called out to her followed by scandalous slurs. Questions about her body and mind shouted across to her, demanding she grab the mags and find the answers. Shaking her head, she picked up a magazine containing short stories that looked bland compared with the others.
With a quick glance at the front page, she dropped into the wire shopping basket. Further down, she found two aimed at writers. Ivy selected the one she normally read and noticed the free gift was a small book of inspirational poetry. Putting that in the basket, she moved on to a section which seemed to grow every time she looked.
The blank front pages of the adult coloring magazines looked out of place. Ivy browsed through them and finally selected two; one that declared it could calm her mind and other that stated she could win a valuable set of coloring pencils by filling in the front cover. She put them both in the basket then moved on.
At the end of the shelves, were the crossword, word searches, Sudoku and puzzle books. Ivy hovered in front of them. She had never been a fan of such things, but having one might be useful right now. Debating, she spent a few minutes looking at them all, then selected one that seemed a good mixture of things.
Adding that to the collection, she did the rest of the shopping she needed to do then headed to the hospital ward that was to become her home for a few weeks whilst she recovered from the major operation she needed.
The Story Files 