Tuesday 25 November 2008

Love and Hate

I went to the writers group today.
Last months homework was to write about something we love and something we hate. So I wrote about summer which I love and people who drop litter which I hate.

The High Street was full of life, the sunshine bringing out the best; girls in summer dresses; guys without their shirts going pink in the sun; little cafes with clusters of tables and chairs on the pavements enjoying a mixture of sun and shade from the plane trees which paraded down the street hiding their flaky skin with huge pointy leaves.
And the worst; the car in front seemed to vibrate from the bass which pumped out of its wound down windows, causing heads to turn as it slowly manoeuvred down the street, stuck in the summer traffic.
I sat in my little car behind. I’d given up listening to my own music, as it was over powered by theirs. By the amount of arms poking out the windows I wondered if it was full of monkeys, but could see it was just a group of wiggers.
White boys trying to be black.
They were trying hard, with the loud hip hop and the sunglasses and gold chains, but everyone knows black boys do it better and they just looked pathetic to me.
Even more so when one of them chucked a wrapper of some kind out of the side window. I wanted to get out of my car and tell them what I think of that sort of behaviour, but even if they were pathetic they were still 4 guys, bigger than me, and more aggressive, just looking for a reason to start on someone.
I sat and fumed in my car.
We were stuck at traffic lights now, and I watched as people walked across the road, not always on the crossing.
Distracted as I was, I didn’t see where the little old lady came from, but she appeared at the side of their vibrating car. Wrapped in a thick coat and woolly hat even in the sun, she came dragging a red shopping basket behind her.
‘We don’t want any of that.’ I heard her say over the sound of the pumping beat. This was met with jeers from the boys in the car.
She bent slowly, and retrieved the shiny wrapper from the ground.
I don’t know how she did it, it was only a chocolate bar wrapper at best, maybe the wind caught it, maybe there was still some chocolate bar left in it. Whatever it was, she managed to make it fly through the air and sail through their open window, and maybe it was my imagination but the car seemed to shudder and roll as the sliver wrapper dropped inside.
Before the boys could react the traffic lights turned green and I beeped my horn to move them on.
I couldn’t help but give the old girl the thumbs up as I went past, but I don’t think she saw me.

It seemed to go down well, although I found it quite hard to write.
Next months starts with, ‘I don’t know why I agreed to this…’ Sounds like fun.

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