Poor Cherries by Lou Willmott
Two girls sit in a field. One brunette and one blonde and both tired. So tired! Tired like chipped nails and soft pink. Tired like pale blue linen and smooth skin. Pink champagne and tennis dresses. They roll their eyes to the breeze and sigh at the movement of the trees. It smells like earth and pollen and sunlight and they sit and sip quietly. Red drinks meeting pink lips, skirts circling their knees. A fresh blanket was laid out beneath them – a small piece of the sky pinned to the grass by their two thin frames.
“I’m tired,” the brunette says to the blonde.
“So tired,” the blonde says to the brunette.
They sip their rose coloured drinks and look off to the distance at the rows of wild flowers that carpet the floor around them. So tired.
They like to spend their days like this in the warm, pale sunlight. Always tired, always rolling their eyes to the breeze. Sometimes they would go to the pool in their striped swimming costumes. Red and blue; colour an inch thick. Lie in the water on their backs, waiting for something to happen. Floating around listlessly, being pushed in every direction by the gentle current. Light turquoise surrounding their bodies and holding them up. Shimmering light reflecting over their skin.
Once they went to a party. They thought that could be fun. Where people wore peachy coloured shirts and had soap smelling skin. Where balloons were tied to door handles and all the other guests danced in the kitchen by strawberry red cupboards and a lemon meringue fridge. The brunette had danced calmly all night, in a raspberry dress with large sleeves. Spinning and twirling with other guests to the zesty jazz music. But the blonde haired girl, so tired, fell asleep on a cream coloured sofa, and didn’t get the chance to dance. After that they decided that they had not had fun after all. Poor tired girls, poor party.
A violet car drives along the track. Blonde and brunette eyebrows raising as they see it approach. Its pale colour shines and sizzles in the light, like a flower bending on its stem. The car’s engine stutters and stalls and stops, so tired from its long journey. So hot in the midday sun. The exhaust chokes loudly; the only sound that can be heard except for the soft movement of the grass and now the brown haired girl and the blonde haired girl are suddenly awake. Pulled out of their fatigue by something of interest. The car’s door is opened and they watch quietly, rose coloured drinks now forgotten. A girl with red hair is revealed to them; her pale ankles hiding amongst the daisies and tall grasses as she sets her foot gently down. They look on at her in her yellow dress and glance over the stripes on her skirt. They do not say anything to her, and she does not say anything to them. A silence comes over the field once more and they find themselves tired all over again.
The girl with the red hair struggles with the car slightly, trying to fix it. The poor girls watch, but they are too tired to help. A soft breeze presses lightly on the field and they let their bodies fall into it. They have closed their eyes in the warmth, and have their legs straightened out into the sunlight. Flat shoes facing up to the sun.
The girl with the red hair gives up, and treads slowly over to them. The brunette and the blonde open their eyes and she stands over the pair of them. The brunette shields her eyes with her hand, blocking out a little slice of sunlight. The girl with the red hair continues to look at them gently. Pretty red ringlets act as a halo to her face, like lemonade and strawberries. The girls sit up as she sits down, and all three cross their legs underneath them. Little lines and impressions pushed into their milky skin from the bumpy ground.
“It’s so sad,” the girl with the red hair says. She pulls a daisy out from the earth, and then another. She tries to thread them together but gives up quickly and throws them back to where they came from.
“So sad,” agrees the brunette.
“So sad,” agrees the blonde.
The girl with the brown hair opens the picnic basket and hands an apple to the girl with the red hair. The girl with the blonde hair pours her a rose coloured drink. She takes it in her freckled hand, and sips at it quietly before taking a bite out of the apple. In the distance a car goes past, shuddering along a different road, but they are too tired to listen to it. Too sad. Poor sad, tired girls.
“So sad,” the girl with the red hair mumbles again.
“So sad,” they agree.
A small brown bird dances out in front of them and chirps sweetly on the soft golden soil. The grass is dry and spikey underneath the blanket and pokes through to their legs. There is an orange tree a little way off, waxy and shining in the warm, pale sun. Their drinks are cold inside of the plastic picnic cups, and a little condensation dribbles onto each of their fingers. So tired that they do not have the energy to care.
“I’m tired,” the brunette says to the blonde.
“So tired,” the blonde says to the girl with the red hair.
“So tired,” the girl with the red hair agrees.
They pause for a moment in the warm orange light.
“It’s so sad,” the girl with the red hair sighs.
“So sad,” the other girls agree.
And they sip at their drinks.
………………..
Lou Willmott is a London based writer, currently studying for her MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She completed her undergrad at the University of Southampton, achieving a first-class honours, and was placed in the university’s annual writing competition. She’s passionate about female representation in literature, and the way in which female characters are presented.
Twitter: @louwillmott