Every Step With Caution
Hope #4: A date with sunrise
Recap: The narrator continues her journeys with fervour, both metaphorical and physical, and retiterates (to herself) how she had reached the end of her rope. At the break of dawn, she breaks too, for a cup of coffee.
I held my fantasies in my handbag. The coffee dripped amber drops of hope, warming my throat, making my hands drop their habitual tremble.
When he wished me a good day, I nearly slipped off my stool. Arms steeled from hard labor, salt and pepper hair, and a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
Folding his newspaper into a perfect rectangle, he stared me down.
My father had conditioned me early on. Listen, never speak. The likeness petrified my bones. Never again would I gamble with casual cruelty.
Metamorphosis doesn’t happen in a day, but it needs to start now.
Author’s Notes:
The above 100-word story is Episode Four of a series called Hope that I’m co-creating with May More. Originally published on Medium (2024), we’re swirling it on Substack with added toppings and (hopefully) brand new reactions from you.
When the previous episode ended with an older man greeting our narrator, I had fully intended to write some dialogue, a meaningful conversation. But my brain bounded to the man who raised me—as it often does, and this scene was born.
Which made me think about how our pasts shape us. Words, actions, and cues we pick up, mixing with our blood like indelible ink. Layers of colors on an empty canvas.
People change, people move on, we work on bettering ourselves, but so many of those early experiences stay with us forever. It can influence us to considerable degrees, and I’ve often realized, with hindsight, how avoiding something is also a choice.
I wonder if we ever learn to trust people or if we just become more wary over time.
Click here to access the series. Find the previous episode below:
We are supposed to write what we know even when we write fiction and i think often we are doing that and we don’t even realise, until we stop and think - some great lines in this episode