Sonia woke early this Saturday morning, not that she wanted to be awake early, but once again she had forgotten to turn the work alarm to silent. The sunlight streamed through the curtains, she kicked her feet under the quilt, tiny specks of dust glistened in the narrow beam of March sunlight. She imagined they were stars in the universe, and then closed her eyes once more.
After a failed attempt to get back to sleep, Sonia resigned herself to the day and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She noticed, with mild annoyance that the bottom sheet had once more sprung from the edges of the mattress. She yawned.
The routine of the morning lay before her like a rug that she had worn thin with her constant repeated steps. Her husband stirred next to her, his deep rumbling breathing annoying her. Too much beer again she deduced, though the smell of stale alcohol filling the bedroom, rendered any deduction as merely child's play.
She turned to look at him, his hairy back, white and speckled with red blemishes and blotches made her sad. Sad as well as guilty at how she viewed him these days, overweight and lazy. This was her primary assessment of the stranger that now and again visited their loveless marriage, the resentment seemed to grip the part of her which once felt love and admiration.
Brian was indeed overweight, and almost everyone who knew him, would agree that he was lazy. In his defence he though, he always was lazy, but not always overweight. Sonia had just overlooked that obvious trait when they first met, blinded by the love that sucked her up in their whirlwind romance. She did though blame him for being semi obese, this was a result of his constant snacking and love of beer, as well as being so lethargic that she imagined he was probably the only human to have evolved from the giant sloth.
He never even stirred as she swung her legs out of the bed, her feet immediately finding the slippers that sat with amazing loyalty awaiting her arrival each morning. Her thoughts flashed through the day ahead, the list swiftly fell into place in her mind. Breakfast, shower, get dressed, quick browse through Facebook (never a quick browse to be honest), some washing, vacuuming, dinner, maybe a walk, prepare for the evening meal, more social media, and then bed, once again to place the slippers in their place of simple obedience.
Her toes curled in the warm fleece surrounding her feet as she rose and headed to the bedroom door, grabbing her dressing gown as she went.
"Breakfast in 20 minutes Brian," she announced, the disdain and resentment in her voice hardly noticeable after all these years.
"Ugh great," grunted Brian, his enthusiasm was like a cynical arrow to her heart, she casually brushed his indifference off; she always did.
Turning back to reach for her phone, which was now fully charged, Sonia noticed the notification light flashing green on her status bar. Her heart lifted, the flashing light was always a small sign of hope that someone, somewhere, might be commenting on her posts, or even better, wanting to connect. Sliding the top of the screen downwards, the latest offer of beachwear from Amazon jumped out at her. Somehow the never sleeping bots at Amazon knew she had been browsing holidays last night, and now all her online feeds spewed flights, hotels and beach necessities.
Once more her hopes of social interaction were shipwrecked upon the rocks of persistent spam. Her heart sank once more to the place where it lived most these days, the cobweb filled basement of disappointment and deferred dreams.
Sonia groaned, her tiredness, physical and mental could be felt in one simple expressive sigh. The stairs were still slightly dark; the morning light never seeming to reach the central portion of their house, but she knew each step well. One hand slid down the light oak bannister, while the other hand slid along the woodchip covered wall, each uneven bump reminding her that Brian had promised to strip these walls 10 years earlier.
The pocket in her dressing gown began to sing Fleetwood Mac's "Looking Out for Love" as her phone burst into microchip life at the arrival of a text message. Sonia knew this was a Facebook message as she had different tunes assigned to different notifications. She had assigned Springsteen's "Born in the USA" to Brian; a tune she loathed for a man she despised.
It was probably her mum, 'oh please don't let it be my mum, not right now she thought.'
She loved her mum dearly, but at 82, any mobile communication was difficult, and now, was not the time for a chat with mum, and have to endure her mother's amazing ability to make her feel twelve years old again.
She touched the fingerprint scanner to open her phone and saw the message box read
"New Message from Karen."
At last, something she wanted to read, and hopefully a lifeline to rescue her from the boredom and mundanity of her suburban life.
Sonia and Karen had been friends for many years, and Karen had moved on in her life. Her husband, Greg, was an amazing guy, keen, attentive, funny and someone that Sonia had always admired. She had never wished Brian could be like Greg, that was never going to happen, but she did wonder why Karen had been so lucky, she opened the text.
"Hey Son, what you up to? I am going to the Spa today, I have a free place, want to come? We need to leave about 10, I can pick you up, it's in Brid, what you say"?
Bridlington, or Brid as locals called it, was only 20 minutes" drive away. Sonia stared at the text for a few more seconds.
"Who's that?" asked Brian, slowly coming down the stairs behind her, dressed in loose fitting, stripy cotton boxers and a well-worn t shirt that read "Just Do It", a huge tick emblazoned across his large chest.
'Yeah Just Fucking Do It Brian,' she thought to herself, 'Just change your t-shirt, just cut your toe nails, just pick your clothes up for once, yes Brian, Just Fucking Do Something!'
The silent shouting in her head burst from her lips as, "Just a text from Karen."
"What the fuck does she want at this time, she can't come around," snapped Brian, his grumpiness matched only by his indifference to anything Sonia wanted to do, his tone condescending, as always.
"She doesn't want to come around, and it's 9.30 anyway," Sonia snapped back.
"Okay, chill out, but don't forget I've got the lads round later for the match, and we are gonna need some sandwiches and snacks, and you need to drive me to Lidl to get some beer as well."
Even though Tesco was only a 5-minute walk, Brian insisted on the 4-mile drive to Lidl, just so he could save a very negligible amount buy grabbing a crate of cheap Polish beer, never mind the wasted fuel.
Brian had been banned from driving for 3 years for driving while over the legal alcohol limit. Since that time, Sonia had become his taxi, as well as taxi for his 'lads'. Each Saturday evening Sonia drove to the White Horse at 11.45pm to pick him up, along with his insanely boring drunken mates.
This normally ended with them coming back to their house and playing poker till the early morning. Leaving Sonia to clean up after them each Sunday morning.
"She wants to take me to a Spa for the day," said Sonia nervously. "There is a crate of beer in the shed still, and I will make sandwiches before I go, at least you will have the house to yourself, what do you think?" Her heart hoped this would be an easy conversation, it was.
"Yeah, whatever, just do what you want, can you bring the beers in before you go though, that shed is full of fucking spiders," Brian responded, the lack of any sign of being a half decent man convinced Sonia that her choice of a spa day was justified.
