'The Road to Nowhere' by Sandra Arnold

You’re leaving the café in the park where you’ve just given  your man the ultimatum you should have given him years ago but wouldn’t have if you hadn’t just come from a meeting with your acting-manager who told you in the coffee queue that you hadn’t got the job you’d  been doing for the last two years though it was nothing personal she said but the one she selected had more experience in the area she wanted and you want to remind her how you’d supported her through the bullying of her manager and how you’d encouraged her to stay and fight and together you got rid of him but you don’t say this because you’re worn down by the battle with your insurers  eight years after the earthquake and thousands of dollars spent on lawyers that has resulted in nothing but an empty bank account and on the way to your car you look back and see your man standing in the pale sunshine under a tree frothed with cherry blossom that drifts around his head like tiny stars and you pass a bridal couple having their photographs taken by the river and you look at their shining faces and know you have no future and just before you get in your car you turn to see a small boy bent over a flower his face creasing into a gap-toothed grin and he points and you follow the trajectory of his finger to a golden-coated bumble bee going about its business in the flower and you remember how that morning after you walked away from the meeting with your manager you felt very cold and Ellen the cleaner noticed you shivering and she took your cold hands in hers and put her warm hand on your cheek.

---

First published in Mslexia 81, February 2019.