"Street's Secrets" (Entry 389)

With case in hand, at the top of the street. 

She stared at the houses and shuffled her feet. 

Wrought iron fence at 47. 

Black arrows upright like

The gates to Heaven. 

The only way was life. 

Freedom! The world!

Experiences to be had 

Out of Brownton Road. 

This place was kids kicking balls. 

Mums calling them to tea. 

Dads in armchairs,

asleep in front of the TV. 

What will the neighbours think?

Street gossip. Prickle-prattle.

Dirty washing behind closed doors. 

Twitching curtains. Tittle-tattle. 

Today, where her road lay was... here. 

She looked back to the high road and life. 

She glared at Brownton Road, 

Stepped into 47 and strife. 

Each tread, a twitch of curtain thread. 

The jeers, Unheard gossip rang through her ears.

"So, she's back!"

"She's here!"

"How could she show her face!"

"You'd think she'd disappear!"

"Sacrifices her parents made"

"University's not cheap!"

"Only for that to happen!"

"Oh, I could just weep!"

"Didn't even finish her degree"

"Her poor parents, my heart goes to them."

"More fool 47 for taking her back!"

"I heard the court was absolute mayhem. "

"The jury was wrong. Dead wrong."

"Dead, just like the guy. Totally agree."

"Not guilty, they said."

"I'd have convicted her, if it had been me."

"Her poor parents."

"She'll have to go! She's caused such a fuss."

"Disgrace on the street."

"Poor Brownton Road! Poor us!"

"The Summons" (Entry 375)

Metal-tipped stiletto heels echo on marble floor. 

Reverberate in smoke-like tendrils to somber dome above. 

Nervous unrhythmic tapping,

As an ancient typewriter hitting and leaving its mark. 

Repetition rebound around the rotunda atrium melding into next. 

It wasn't fair!

She had been summoned. 

There was no refusal. 

She arrived on time,

But had been kept waiting. 

Sweat her out!

Why was she made to feel guilty?

She jolted as sight met with uniformed guard, 

And held. 

Steely blue ex-service beneath peaked cap to 

Brown and teary, fighting fear, to point of sending mascara flowing in inky ribbons over alabaster cheeks,

As pale as any statue that graced this hallowed hall. 

He sat as judge, jury and executioner 

Behind raised and ruling oak desk. 

Her gaze fazed first. 

Desperate to find new eye line. 

Hard, dark, wood bench. 

New project.

She sat tentatively on the same spot as 

Rumps by the multiple had polished before. 

A grey suited identikit drone loomed and slithered from behind a heavy ornate door.

Her fingers gripped and well-worn edge as she screamed inside. 

Why her? 

What was she doing here?

It wasn't her fault? Wasn't her desire?

Who truly wants to work here?

Not her!

Why go through all this when she didn't want the job!

She rose to go. 

But the drone approached. 

He lifted his chin a little higher to peer down her nose to her. 

Nostrils quivering as he sniffed,

"Miss Cavendish. Your father will see you now."