Some Sort of Trouble

‘Are you in some sort of trouble love?’ asked the taxi driver.

Nishi squirmed in the hot vinyl hugging her toddler closer, her free hand tightening on the chubby leg of her five-month old.

‘Please… if anyone asks… you never made this journey’ she pleaded, hiding her black eye.

Nishi glanced back at what had been her home, nestled in the verdant hills, diminishing out of view.

The picturesque village with the 16th century church, weekly fete and mother’s group epitomised a rural idyll. Yet the dream was never Nishi’s, and the othering was relentless. The playgroup mothers asking her where she learnt English. Same place you did, from my parents, when I was a baby she thought but never retorted. The barely hidden speculation on what colour her unborn Indian-English child would be. The titters about their house ‘smelling funny’. She had tried so hard to fit in. Eventually exhausted by Murray’s hostility, she had given up.

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Resolutions

Resolutions? Don’t we all think of that in the start of a new year?

And, don’t we all fall by the wayside about three minutes later.

Stop drinking, stop smoking, eat less, exercise more……. That covers every resolution ever thought of, I think.

What about a new resolution then? Its quite simple really.

Its just “be kind”.

Our planet is in dire straits, and as the song goes, “a little less conversation a little more action”.

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