Green

"Homework" exercise done for my writing group, in reponse to the following task:
"Choose a colour - for instance, pink - and take a fifteen minute walk. On your walk notice wherever there is pink. Come back to your notebook and write for fifteen minutes on anything you've seen or the subject pink."

I cheated. I drove for fifteen minutes, instead of walking. My excuse: it was windy and I feel fairly crap.

As I drove, I was thinking about everything that had happened today, what had been said. Or, more accurately, I was doing everything to avoid thinking.

I tried thinking about my chosen colour instead: green. I am, coincidentally, sitting in a green armchair, wearing a green top, drinking a coffee from a mug bearing a green logo. Listening to Pink Floyd – ok, that’s a different colour.

The chair is a dark, kind of khaki / olive green shade, tarnished with crumbs and a couple of small rips…

(I wish they would be quieter. Her laugh is like a weird orgasmic shriek and his voice is low and sounds sinister. She has to lean into him to hear what he says before leaning back again to let out another high pitched yelp…)

My top is a lighter green. I hardly ever wear colours, or at least I very rarely used to. But I decided fairly recently to stop just wearing denim and black. So I bought a green top and green skirt.

When I put that outfit on, with my favourite tan knee-length boots, I feel good. People who know me are surprised when they see me wearing it, because it’s so unlike me. But it’s gradually starting to feel like me.

The man clearing the tables is wearing a green apron too. There’s a bright green drinking straw lying crushed on the floor, a remnant from a busy, noisy day in the café.

I suppose we associate green with nature. With health, maybe.

(Please, please stop laughing and touching each other. I can’t bear to see that today. Go home…)

Nature. Trees, leaves, plants, grass. I love the way green leaves turn brown, orange, red in autumn. But even more, I love the way some trees stay green: a deep, dark green – almost black if they’re in a thick forest. It reminds me of Christmas trees and of winter walks with snow falling.

Green – environmentalists. The Green Party. Think Green! My best friend is an environmentalist. She works for WWF. I call her Green or a “Greener” for a laugh. She is a very intelligent, successful woman, but is still a “dappy bird” (her words, not mine!). She doesn’t like air travel. She recycles and buys “eco” washing up liquid and stuff. I feel I have to lie to her when I fly places with work, or use my car a lot, although she doesn’t get at me.

There’s a bright green notepad over there. It’s so bright, it’s standing out from the rest of the numerous notepads, diaries and stationery on sale. Too bright for my tastes.

It’s good to have greenery in your home, but I can’t look after house plants. I forget about them. Or Monkey eats them.

When he moved into a new flat, more than four years ago, we had just met. I bought him a very small, cheap ivy plant. A couple of years ago, it was dead – we were sure it was. But it started growing again. And from nothing, a tiny, almost dead stem, it grew and grew. Now, it’s enormous. It takes up his whole window sill. Its leaves are very dark green. I wonder if it’ll die again, then grow again…

Remember Me!

A fifteen minute unplanned writing response done at my writing group. It was in response to a card, which showed a cartoon picture of a computer, subtitled with the phrase "Remember Me!" It's just a "story chunk". Have no idea where it would go from here...

The screen blinked into life, cancelling the bubbling fish screen saver. His eyes scanned the screen for signs…

“Please,” he thought. “Please don’t let me have missed her.”

What the hell was he thinking answering the door anyway? Five minutes persuading a man that, no thank you, he didn’t want to change electricity providers.

“We said 7,” he hisses frantically to himself.

Messenger. JP – Offline.

“Shit.”

“You have one new message.” The reassuring box popped up at the bottom of the screen. He swiftly clicked on it:

“Where are you? Missed you. Never mind. Maybe another night.”

“Damnit. Damnit!”

He slammed down his mouse and the cursor flew across the screen.

He put his head in his hands, feeling his greasy hair against his head.

“Bing!”

“Hi there!”

Another small box appeared at the foot of the screen.

“AN is not on your contact list.

Curious, he clicked on the box, opening the dialogue window.

“Hi…”, he typed.

Pause.

“How you doing?” The message appeared, followed by one of those annoying cartoon question marks which spins round, distracting the eye.

“Cool, thank you.”

“Great!”

A pause.

“Remember me?”

A smiley face. God, he hatred smilies.

He took a moment to think: AN, AN. He was usually good with names and contacts.

He typed again:

“I think so. Where are you from?”

“You know where.”

“Do I?”

“You should! Don’t you remember me?”

“OK, I’ll be honest, I don’t.”

“But we talked just last night…”

This is weird, he thought. He didn’t remember any online conversations last night, apart from the one with JP – the one when he’s told her how he felt…

“Remember me now?”

“I think you have the wrong person.”

“No. No I don’t. You said you loved her, didn’t you?”

He stopped – his hands hanging over the keys.

“What?!”

“You told her. You told her you loved her. And she told you you were pathetic.”

He felt his heart skip and his face go hot.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

“You don’t remember me?”

“No! What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“I saw what you wrote. You said you loved her. She would have laughed in your face if she could have over Messenger.”

He thought quickly.

“OK, very funny. Now piss off and annoy someone else.”

A long pause.

Good. AN has given up, he thought. Just some random nutter.

At the bottom of the window: “AN is writing a message.”

“I’m watching you…”