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J for Just a Little More: #atozchallenge Fiction

As a co-host, I begin with A to Z Challenge  reminders:

1. Turn off your word verification. It helps no one. You may moderate comments for a while if you’re unsure.
2. In your comment id, link only to your AZ blog, NOT your profile which may have five other blogs.

3. Leave a link to you when you comment.
4. Comment when you visit blogs. Start visiting with the blog below you on the linky list.
5. Make it easy for people to follow your blog and follow you on social media.
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Today’s story starter (in bold red at the beginning of the story below) and picture are from Mina Lobo, and I chose them because they seemed so much in harmony. Here goes the story:
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Just a little more love, crooned David Guetta from the battered radio in the workshop, that’s all you need. She sat in the half light coming in from the bay window above the stairs, the lyrics slamming about in her head as she worked on the mannequin. The sky gloomed over the house, overcast, silent.

How had it come to this? Like her mother all those years ago who used to come and hug her on dark, rainy days, she was reduced to longing for a touch that would tell her she wasn’t alone. That this day that followed day held meaning, that the pricks of the needle on her fingers as she created one vintage dress after another were worth more than just the money required for their mortgage, or the fees for her daughter’s music lessons.

This is what he has brought me to, she muttered as Guetta kept crooning the same words over and over again, a cliched suburban wife looking for a ‘little more love’.

She imagined him in another part of town–her husband, beginning to grow bald, soften around the middle, poring over the accounts at his job, his glasses poised at the bridge of his nose.

Would I have married him had I known, she whispered under her breath, her hand picking up pace over the mannequin, that this is what it would come to?

She watched as the first drops of rain pelted the glass window, began to weep their way down and out of sight. I was always alone, even in his arms in those first days, right in the throes of my pleasure. 

She switched off the radio, walked up the stairs and sat herself on the bay window. I’m always alone–you’re each alone though you fall together, she told the raindrops. We’re all alone. The trick is to learn how not to be lonely. 

 She watched as it poured on the houses and trees across her street, hugging herself, rocking to and fro. Just a little more love won’t cut it.
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A to Z Stories of Life and Death

If you liked this story you might like some of the stories I wrote for my A to Z last year.

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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