Three Things About Elsie

by Joanna Cannon

rain started again, but it was slight and indecisive, and every so often, the windscreen wipers shouted out in frustration, as they ran out of things to wipe.

It’s strange, because you can put up with all manner of nonsense in your life, all sorts of sadness, and you manage to keep everything on board and march through it, then someone is kind to you and it’s the kindness that makes you cry. It’s the tiny act of goodness that opens a door somewhere and lets all the misery escape.

how can you talk to somebody, when even their eyes aren’t listening to you?

Sometimes, you go through an experience in life that slices into the very bones of who you are, and two different versions of yourself will always sit either side of it, like bookends.

There is something special about a coastal morning. The day seems to have so much more potential when there’s a seaside attached to it. Perhaps it’s the brightness from the water, scrubbing everything clean like a front step, ready for you to start again.

The house was flat and silent. I could have sworn there was no one at home. It’s odd how you know a house is empty, just by looking at the outside. If there are people in there, it seems to warm a building up. All the laughter and the conversation seem to leak into the bricks.