Virginia Smith

“Next year I just want to stay alive” by Virginia Smith

Submitted to Contest #179

Next year I just want to stay alive. This is my resolution. This is my battle. And my mantra is “If I can do this, I can do anything”. This year can go to hell. Well, it did go to hell when I found out that little thump I get in my chest now and then, is actually my heart trying to overcompensate for a main aortic valve which is rapidly failing, blocked, refluxy and threatening to kill me. No pain, hardly any symptoms, just a little thumpiness. So this new year’s eve, I think to hell with it, drink champagne if you can stay awake that long, ...

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“Oakville Christmas” by Virginia Smith

Submitted to Contest #178

It was hot, I was hung over and I didn’t have time for all this shit. Why do I do this? Why don’t I just say that Christmas lunch at the club would be fine. I love lunching with a thousand randoms and their screaming offspring. So I offered our place, five acres of rather dusty grazing land on a hill far enough away that we could forget we worked in the city. I stayed up til god knows when the night before wrapping presents, weeping and singing along to Christmas carols on the TV. Generalised exhaustion and panic blending to a mix of I-d...

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“Pumpkin vine” by Virginia Smith

Submitted to Contest #128

It had just started to rain, so softly you could barely feel it on your skin. But the path was darkened and I could see the droplets on the pond. I stepped slowly forward, absorbing each moment deliberately, the elegant trimmed plants, the perfect pebbles. I closed my eyes for the smell of pine in the damp morning. For many years I hoped and saved and planned to journey to Japan. I like the word journey much better than travel, and completely better than holiday (or worse still, trip). It infers a level of knowledge of the place to be expe...

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“Sunday Morning Sydney” by Virginia Smith

Submitted to Contest #85

We moved as far away from the city as you can move without actually leaving. An hour’s drive at 2am on a Sunday, at least two hours of peak hour commute. 75 kilometres of get-me-out-of-here to our little acre of green. Where we feel the sun, we see the stars and the milky way, we hear the rain coming across the valley. If someone drives down the road we think “who’s that?”. Ducklings cross like crazy city pedestrians. Start, hesitate, get distracted, run. We chat to the neighbour’s cows, disinterestedly munching down by the back fence. At ni...

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“Where we slept” by Virginia Smith

Submitted to Contest #65

It had been a beautiful day and promised to continue sunny and dappled, into the warm evening. We’d been bushwalking all day, with no real destination, just a rambling holiday enjoying nature, and escaping from the city and it’s crowds, the anxiety of the possibility of Covid infection left behind with the grey noise. Hiking holiday sound way too athletic. Ours was more a very long stroll. Absorbing the green countryside, taking a zillion photos from vast landscapes to tiny cicada shells, and chatting or singing as we walked. Eventual...

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“Breathe” by Virginia Smith

Submitted to Contest #52

He looked at me. My heart skipped a beat, an embarrassing flush swept up my neck, breaking into a lip-top sweat. I looked down, but couldn’t resist the urge to glance up again, and hold his gaze. Those eyes.  I kept walking forward by reflex rather than decision. My knees suddenly wobbly like a toddler. My feet leaden things. No one in that city street noticed us, locked in our visual embrace. Steaming magnets drawn closer, right out there in public, losing every thought but the thought of him. Of her. Closer. No one would notice ...

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“Happy New Year” by Virginia Smith

“Happy New Year” I said to myself “Happy. New. Year.” When I should be feeling the optimism, the energy of a fresh start, all I felt was bleh. Not just hangover bleh but that kind of mental, spiritual bleh that hangs around in your heart like a sack of musty laundry on a rainy day. Heavy. Smelly. Bleh.“Cmon Gin… today’s the day!” my optimistic self prompted cheerily. “Resolutions day! Time to set goals... Go forth… Get moving along life’s highway…”I stared blankly out the window. Would I be inspired by the saggy potplants on the verandah or ...

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