![]() ![]() ![]() I, on the other hand hope that anyone who enters will just trip over the labradors. Husband does have a weapon behind the bedside table, just in case. We have never had to defend our citadel from marauders, and we don’t do guns. We built the bedroom, and the house, and the children who have left to make their own memories. In winter the carpet harbours a wet labrador smell from the two hounds who will play in the rain, but won’t sleep outside. In summer it smells of deodorant and the frenzy of the South Easter as it whips through the windows. I snuggle into his pillows and if I breathe just right, I can feel him breathe too. I reply with a heart, smear my makeup off with the remains of the wipe and slide in my GrindCure teeth guard. “B-a-a-a-a-be?” “Yes? I’m here!” Skype tells me the call has dropped. He smiles and his face freezes, distorting monstrously. “79 days to go!” I chirp, clenching the damp wipe into my fist. “Hello, my love,” he crackles over the distance. His face appears, pixellated, blurry and frostbitten. The chiming cheerful pops of Skype smash the silence and I stub my nail too fast. I turn off the tired fan beating at the thick soupy air and slash on some lipstick, yanking a wipe under my eyes to catch renegade mascara. I flick the lamp instead and nudge across the cleansing wipes. The overhead light casts an unflattering shadow down my nose. #November book writing challenge portableA portable charger waits to report for duty, my cell on loud, plugged in to turbojuice the unit. They are placed lengthwise in the centre of the bed, firm except for a dent from where my thigh rests on the cool cotton. His body is carefully constructed out of two rectangular pillows and one plushy squishable one for my arms. Wrapped in a cardboard box, nestled amongst my underwear.Īs I slump onto the bed, the oak headboard hammers its reminder. Burying my face into it, I breathe in the fading musky smell.Īs I cross the Persian runner, slimy from Baxter’s morning bone, my heart’s in my throat. But, although his suits are gone, the blue shirt is still there. I clamber into the hanging section, panic rising in my chest. The cupboard is a carcass, almost picked clean. Is it the trace of unfamiliar cologne? Or is it Baxter, snuffling at the base of Doug’s wardrobe? Squeaking the door open, I see the pile of tee-shirts has shrunk, the cufflink boxes are missing, the tie rack less choked. All seems as I left it this morning, even the beige curtains, drawn across my grief. ![]() The air feels clammy, despite the relentless drone of the ceiling fan. On the matching oak pedestal, Doug’s Stephen Leather book rests, its brown-tasseled marker forever stuck in the middle. Alongside it lies my kindle, its light a solid green, charged for the night ahead. His suntanned arms wrap protectively around my bare shoulders, and I’m grinning too, unaware that this will be our last photo together. Doug beams at me from our honeymoon photo, propped against my bedside lamp. Jenny Alence, in her usual very precise, accurate and lyrical way, describes a room where the slight tension emerges from a hardly perceptible tug between past and present Sam Dymond gives us a bedroom turned cinder by fire, again very accurate and restrained and Osoch Ogun whose bedroom is filled with a silent other, and his own demonic, passionate energy.įrom the wingback chair, my one-eyed teddy greets me with a glassy stare. Honorable mentions go to three very different entries. Tayla catches very precisely the loneliness of someone whose partner has been called away for a prolonged period, while Helen presents with humour and irony a snapshot of an old and well-worn relationship. Runners up are Tayla Kaplan and Helen Nevin. Anyone who wants to learn something about restraint in capturing powerful emotions should read this. Overall winner is Bindi Davies with a very powerfully evocative portrait of a room, and of a protagonist still caught in the throes of grief. Which is another word, I suppose, for internal conflict. What separated the winners and the runners up from the others was really that issue of complexity. So we really do appreciate the candour with which every one of you approached this exercise. Speaking generally, I think it’s probably impossible to describe a bedroom, particularly your own, without saying something very revealing about its occupant. There’s something about a room, something specifically about that most intimate of rooms, your bedroom, that inspires us as writers to sink deep, fast. Try to build up a picture of some of your internal contradictions or complexities – and possibly of the person with whom you share the room. If you remember, we challenged you to “describe your bedroom in such a way as to give us an insight into who you are. There were loads of entries for the October-November writing challenge. ![]()
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