Non-Fiction Announcement – Coronavirus

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to write this notice post, though I’m sure everyone is aware of what is going on in the world right now.

Currently, I’m well (if I get the chance, I’ll change that to ‘not well’ etc when needed) but I am in the high risk group as I have severe asthma and ulcerative colitis – a bowel disease- which has given me a weakened immune system and also the drugs I take for it are immunosuppressant.

I’m staying as well as I can, following all advice/instructions and keeping up to date with coronavirus reports. I am thinking about self isolation in general to lower my chances of getting the virus, it may or may not help me but for me as I’m at risk of complications from having the virus or even worse, it makes sense to do what I need to to be safe.

With regrades to this blog and posting a short story a day, I will carry on as normal. I’m writing a few stories extra when I can to have ready to publish in case I can’t write.

However, if days start to become missed then please understand it’s because I’m too ill to write. I will catch up on them when I can.

Thank you for your support, Hayley.

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The Strangest Thing #TMAT

My fever was high. I could feel myself drifting, the sense of leaving my body.

I landed on a wooden beam, high above a city. I swayed, feeling dizzy. What was going on? There seemed no end to the beam but I couldn’t stop myself from walking.

My foot slipped. I fell passed all the buildings then the ground opened and into the fiery earth’s core I went. Heat blistered my skin, I screamed before coming out the other side into a frozen land.

Ice filled me, shivers racked me and my fever broke.

 

(Inspired by; https://rantingalong.blog/2019/06/06/joelles-tales-first-thursday-of-the-month-tmat120-writing-prompt-for-june-6-2019/ with thanks).

 

Silence

Everything was too loud and bright; birds singing in the trees, dawn peering around the curtains. A cat meowing to be let in – her cat? Then someone’s whistling and echoing footsteps. A car engine started as she reached over and turned on the lamp which triggered an explosion in her head that sent her back down to the pillow. Groaning, she tried to get up but knew she wasn’t going to make it. She reached for some water and pills, taking them quickly. Then searched for her ear defends and a blind fold.

Silence at last.

 

(Inspired from; https://lindaghill.com/2017/12/27/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2018-rules/ with thanks).

Summer Cold

You had been feeling run down all of yesterday but you had thought you were just tried after running from meeting to meeting. Now though, as you wake up, you realise you have a cold. Struggling to get up, you hope a shower and a cup of tea will help. Doing that seems to help but even before you get dressed you know you’re not going to make it.

You phone in sick and crawl back to bed, feeling guilty. You should go in but your head is pounding, your nose dripping and your eyes feel so tried, you don’t feel like you’ve just been asleep. You pull the duvet over our head, nestle into the pillow and let sleep cart you away again.

Summer Cold

She had been believing that it was hay fever over the last few days.

Awaking, she felt worse and realized it was a mild cold.

Sighing, she decided to spend the day in bed, hoping it would go away with rest.

Enough’s Enough

Penny sank on to her two seat sofa and felt like she had just landed on a cloud. She shut her eyes, but snapped them open again as her small brown staffie dog jumped up next to her. Pip wagged her tail, give a little moan then curled about Penny’s legs. Sighing, Penny stroked Pip, feeling the short soft fur under her hot sweaty hand. Penny felt the urge to grab the dog and bury her face against Pip’s neck then cry loudly.

Penny held it together and instead carried on petting Pip as her thoughts fell into a downward spin. Rubbing her forehead and trying to ease the migraine that was steadily building, she thought about taking some pain killers. However, the dog felt so good against her legs, that she did not want to move.

She shut her eyes and listened to the sound of traffic outside her flat. A car horn blared then engines rumbled by. Voices drifted in the hallway and a door shut somewhere. Penny let the background noise fade, she willed herself to doze and her head to empty of all the dangerous thoughts that now existed.

Pip sighed into her jeans and Penny felt a gentle wave of warmth coming off the dog. Feeling grateful that she wasn’t alone, Penny let go the suicidal thoughts and told herself it had just been a bad day at work. Further more a bad week.

‘Maybe I need a new job,’ she said a loud.

Pip twitched and looked up at her.

‘But the hours and pay are great and I do like it…I just wish certain people weren’t there…It must be easy being a dog,’ Penny added as her thoughts drifted.

Pip wagged her tail at that and licked Penny’s wrist.

‘You don’t have to worry about money or jobs. You just have to think about food and sleeping and walks.’

Pip barked.

‘No, no.Hush,’ Penny cut in and petted her head, ‘It’s okay. You’ve all ready been out, remember?’

Pip grumbled then settled back on Penny’s legs.

Penny rubbed the dog up and down her spine, feeling the bones under her fingers. Leaving her hand in the middle of Pip’s back, Penny sniffed a few times, feeling tears welling. Her migraine pounded loudly, blocking all further thoughts.

Penny got up and went into her bedroom. Pip followed, yawing. Penny dug out some pain kilers, took them with some water from a bottle she had in her bag then climbed into bed. Ignoring the little voice, that had somehow gotten through the pain her head, pleading for her to take the whole box, she curled up and tried to sleep.

Pip joined her and Penny pulled the dog closer. The tears she had been holding back sprung forth and she give into the crying. Sobbing loudly, she struggled to catch her breath. Slowly down, she breathed deeply then moved and flipped the pillow over so she wasn’t laying on a wet patch.

‘It’s okay,’ she muttered, ‘I’ll get things sorted. Tomorrow. I’ll speak to someone and things will be better. And if I have to move jobs then that’s what I’ll do.’

Pip moaned and snuggled closer to Penny’s chest. Unable to avoid the flicker of a smile on her face, Penny wrapped the duvet around them both tighter and Listened to Pip’s loud breathing. Shutting her eyes, Penny let herself drift off.

Tomorrow things would change, no matter what. 

Struggle

Carly sat on her bed and felt her body refuse to move. She sighed and flopped back against the pillows. She cast a look at what had now become her world; her ground floor flat with this bedroom at the center. All her stuff was in close enough range, but on days like today she still couldn’t reach much. She eyed her bookcase, which was overflowing with second hand paperbacks brought from charity shops. She had no interested in most of the titles and the books at the top were gathering dust now.

She turned her head up and tried to look out of the window. Her large bed blocked most of the view. She told her arms to move and her hands to grip the bed rail. It took forever, but then she felt cold metal against her skin and was able to close her palms. Pulling herself up, she felt pain shooting down her back and legs. Biting her lip, she carried on despite the urges to stop.

Now sitting up, she looked out of the window and into the apartment complex’s private garden. The sun was shining on bright flowers and birds were at the feeding table. Carly wished she could go outside. Grabbing the bed rail tighter, she did the next best thing and swung open the window. A warm breeze hit her skin and she took in a deep breath of summer air.

Resting there for a few minutes, she felt her body gearing up to punish her more. Still though, she pushed as far as she could and kept her eyes fixed on the garden. Her grip on the railings started to grow loose and at last she had to give in and slump face down into the pillows, her body stretched out on the bed. She began to cry softly, wondering why it had to be her.

(Inspired by the prompt at <a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/struggle/”>Struggle</a&gt;)

Dear Diary #18

I wanted today to be a bed day, but of course it being Monday, that wasn’t going to happen. My part-time job sucks. Don’t get me wrong, I love the animals and hearing the old customer stories about their present and past pets. Stacking the shelves and tidying is fine too, but the hours and the money? It needs to change. If I could I’d open my own pet shop, but you know what? There’s no point because the internet is where everything will end up.

Afterwards, I came home for lunch and the news, before heading to the hospital. I swear they run on a different time clock to the rest of us. Finally, I was sat in the right waiting room and camped out for almost two hours before it was my turn. I got weighed and the nurse said I’d put on two stone! I know I thought I’d go up a jean size, but I didn’t think it was that much. Time to get down to the gym and swimming again. Not that I’ve got a problem with that. I love swimming, just once again though having to listen to old people chatting away. I wish I could get a big house with its own pool. Then I could go swimming every day and not have to worry about paying or other people.

Anyway, seeing the doctor didn’t go so well. He upped my pills and gave me some more to take. He was unhappy with my last two lots of blood tests and my update. The joys of living with a long-term-none-curable-health problem. I was glad to get out there! Back in my matchbox car, poor Brum is due for scrapping really, I saw I’d been four hours! How shocking is that? I wondered if I’d really been stuck in some time tunnel and it had been running really slow whilst outside had stayed normal. Whatever the case, I went home and found Mr. Tip waiting for me.

He was meowing over his empty bowls and he was delighted that his crying had brought me home! I feed him, give him some water then collapsed on the sofa. I put a cushion over my face and reflected on the appointment. I might have dozed off had Tip not jumped up and sat on top of the cushion and my face.

I had that left over salad for tea and watched another four or five of The Good Wife. Then mum phoned and asked how it all went. She wasn’t pleased to hear my news and said we’d go to lunch tomorrow to talk about it more. She suggested a bath, so that’s what I went and did. Luckily, I found that bath gift set behind the toilet, where a certain someone –cough ‘Tip’ cough- had knocked it.

The bath did me good and now I’m in bed, eyeing all my new medication and sighing over the fact I’ll never get a boyfriend. Who’d want me so doped up and going round in a never ending circle of high and low? Though I was so tempted to sign up for that speed dating event next month…Everyone has their problems, right? Maybe, it would do me some good and even if I didn’t meet anyone, at least it would be an evening out.

Another Sick day

Ash settled under her sofa fort, fighting a wave of the shivers. Tightening the duvet around herself, she rested against the fluffy cushions and look out over the darkened living room. Her dog, Harry, snuggled into her feet and lower legs. Heat drifting from his body and his paw tapping against her. Ash wonder what he dreamed of as dawn broke outside, bring life to a crisp January day.

Soup

All she wanted to do was curl up on the sofa with a bowl of hot soup and her favorite TV show to wait out the storm.