Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

Mirabelle felt her head expand with air, as the laughter, the hysterics, made way to deep embarrassment that was not without a spiteful undertone. She hadn’t been guilty of stealing Miriam’s precious necklace, no, Mamie had lost the heavy silver and green thing all by herself in a drunken stupor on the night of her big opening. But the waiter had given it to Miri, saying he seemed to remember the beautiful woman in their group wearing it when they were last there, as if Mirabelle did not fit into that category and wasn’t beautiful at all, and that comment, somehow, paired with Mamie’s rude commentary on the blue collar workers and never ever wanting to sink so low as to have a job as a waitress, in total disregard of Miri belonging to that exact class and in fact doing exactly that for a living, despite her writing habit, oh, Mamie made her feel like a rank dilettante, a half-assed amateur, an embarrassing country sibling not to be taken seriously at all, and all that eye-rolling to ...

”What’s with the huge saw? It looks ancient, man.” “It is ancient. It used to belong to Dad, remember? It’s the same one.” “Well, why do you have it here? You got some acute sawing happening here on this teeny balcony on the second floor? Doesn’t Dad need it himself?” “No. He doesn’t. Not anymore.” “Oh my god –” “No! It’s not that! He’s very much alive!” “Shit! Don’t do that!” “Sorry. It’s just – the house is gone, Mimou.” “Gone?” “Yes. Mom and Dad sold it last year. Everything had to go. It was this whole big thing. We were fighting so much… They moved into a condo so all the outdoors tools, everything from the attic, the yard furniture, all gone.” “I don’t believe it.” “I know.” “But why did you want to have the saw?” “Well, he’s had it since always. I remember it since we were little. I couldn’t bare to see it thrown out. And of course, you know, in case of robbers.” “Robbers, really? What you gonna do, saw them in half and ...

Hello, my dear Facebook friends, Instagram friends, friends who wandered on this page by accident, those friends who actually sought to be here, and personal friends whom I have coerced into reading these stories, and all haters, too, should there be any. About a week ago, a bit of information was brought to my attention. Turned out I had almost lost someone very dear to me in an accident, and I hadn’t even noticed it until that person called to inform me about it. I don’t know which was worse, the feeling of hearing that person tell me it had been this close, or knowing that, since we are not in touch anymore on weekly bases, even monthly, sometimes, I would have just carried on with the small details of my life’s trivia book for god knows how long before finding out. So, today, let’s take a different route. This is an older story, part of a longer narrative. I wrote it about four or five years ago, in Finnish, so here it is, untouched, faults and all, in its original form. ...