Debut Flash: 'Sunshine' by Clive Nicholas Hook

Curtains closed – total eclipse. Beautiful blackout. Perfect peace. Bit of a lie-in.

“Are you getting up darling?”. Again. How many more times? My wife, Constance. Good name. Never bloody stops. Voice from downstairs. Used to bring her tea before the 6:48. Part of the routine. She’d bring me tea in bed at weekends. Now just shouts from the kitchen. Must think it makes me lazy if tea is delivered.

Her smile warms me inside like that tea – I think that’s what emotion is. Not big on emotion, me – but I read somewhere about someone melting your heart. That’s about right. I can still smell where she was in bed, so I put her pillow over my head, but I can hear her calling again. Give it a rest Constance.

“Come on Ray, your tea’s getting cold down here”.

Definitely not bringing it up then. Years of tea delivery and she’s not going to return the favour.

“Come on. It’s lovely and sunny like you out there in the garden”

Will she never bloody give up? Teases what she calls my “miserable accountant’s face” with “her little Ray of sunshine” quips.

OK up, shower, shave and downstairs. “Life’s always better after a shower” she says, “No-one ever said ‘I feel terrible after that shower’”. I do actually feel a version of better now. Less numb, almost alive.

 “On my way” I call.
There she is. Constance. Always there waiting for me. Constance. Forever smiling and surrounded by cards.  ‘To Ray, with Deepest Sympathy’.

”Good morning my little Ray of sunshine” her eyes smile from the photograph “what plans for today?”.

I smile, blink, and start to count the minutes of daylight until I can go back to bed.