Sheila's Dribs 'n Drabs

She built a castle long ago round her heart. Weeds grew, imparted a wildness to her look. Thorns guarded the door. And time stood still. He knocked at the door, crept into the darkened room to remembered love. “Amy?” Old eyes gazed up, old memories replacing new. Weeds fell away.

Chimes over water, like Christmas bells in summer; “What is it Mommy?” Chiming of ropes and tackles, wires, the song of wind and sails that long to flee. Mommy cries. “What is it Mommy?” Chimes of memory, a night on the yacht; his betrayal; her denial. She loves the child.

“Return to sender,” it said, though he’d not sent it. Still, his name was written, letters much too neat for his crabbed script. He opened it. “Dear John, I’m sending back your heart. It really didn’t fit.” “It wasn’t ever yours,” he said, and went out with her sister instead.

She walks the beach where footsteps turn to melted pools in sand. He scrabbles back. While she approaches, he, alone, retires. She’s close. He hides his heart inside the gift of her desire. She picks the shell up, holds it high and shakes. Hermit peeks out. Child screams and flees.

She wonders at the quaking in her heart, the doubts that overcome her waking hours. But on the beach her thoughts fly free as butterflies. Yes, she tells herself, she’s ready after all. She walks home with a shaking flower of love awakening her soul. “I love you,” she replies.

Alicia-May banished her husband to the garage due to engine parts in the kitchen sink. They lived in amicable separation until two mixing bowls, a wooden spoon, and three saucepans disappeared. Alicia’s husband, a policeman, investigated and, on finding said items beside his workbench, promptly banished Alicia to the kitchen.