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Short Story: UNDERRATED
1 min read
The morning sun sprayed in through the bathroom window making the air thick and warm. She sat up, rubbed her neck. She couldn’t remember lying down but the rest of it was clear:
Lipstick smudged on the tile work.
Cigarettes roaming free from the pack.
A shoe by the pedestal.
Pain like a rock behind her eyes.
It never used to be like this.
She checked her watch. Late again.
Screw it.
And come to think of it, hadn’t it always been like this?
Only the rooms and towels changed.
She washed her face in the mirror. She used the toilet and brushed her hair. She poured leftover vodka into a coffee cup and took the cup down to the hotel smoking area.
She was a high-income events coordinator.
Single divorcee.
House in the hills.
No significant other, verging on no anything other.
A little therapy here and there, to take the edge off.
Successful apparently. On all the lists.
All the pacifying lies.
None of it mattered this week. Out in the bitumen lot with the other smokers, she felt her head spin a little. The nausea passed, one problem for another.
END
— IAIN
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