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We don't often get short stories in here do we? This is, however, a work in progress until I get it finalised and shiny for Tuesday, which is when I have to submit it to my creative writing workshop. I'm mostly pleased with it (this being a progression from draft 1.0 -> 1.5 -> 2.0). Thus, it's kinda important, so any advice (esp ones that involve cutting out roughly a hundred words to fit the limit...) would be much appreciated.

As a final note (just so I can show off one of the bits I'm kinda proud of); 'Cora' is another name for Persephone of greek mythology. The main tale about her is that she's kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld (away from the nature/nurture of her mother). The tale is, amongst other things, known as 'The rape of Persephone' - she's never able to wholly escape from the underworld/Hades.

* * * *

“Hello, Rose.”

Mrs. Rosemary Woolfe was not the kind of woman who shocked easily. She had always detested elderly individuals who tutted and clucked over the antics of teenagers, ‘foreigners’, homosexuals, girls in short skirts, or anyone else who unwittingly caused offence that day. She refused to be counted amongst their number. She was the kind of elderly woman who wore shocking shades of purple; who insisted and being called ‘Rose’ rather than ‘Rosemary’, because the latter made her feel like she should be embroidering doilies; who revelled in change because it was always happening, and one was much better off enjoying it than crying over it. There were more important things to enjoy, or indeed be shocked by. And that deceptively simple ‘hello’ was one of them. For almost nine seconds she mutely held her front door open, staring at the young woman who stood on the steps, arms wrapped protectively about her torso.

“Goodness me,” Rose said just before her muteness reached a ninth second. “Cora, you must be freezing, it’s a bitter night, come up to the kitchen before you catch your death.”

The girl did not move. “I-I don’t want to disturb you.”

“And you’re not. Now come in.”

Cora was silent as she followed Rose to her third floor apartment. The entirety of the large, Victorian town house belonged to Rose – she and her husband, Arthur, inherited it from his side of the family – but they had decided that they didn’t need all that space, so instead converted the lower floors into rooms and apartments that were rented to postgraduate students and, as the estate agent liked calling them, ‘starting-out professionals’. As she ushered Cora into her kitchen, Rose wondered what Arthur would make of this unexpected reappearance.

Rose’s kitchen made anybody who entered it think ‘1950s’, despite the fact that the mostly wooden, sometimes cushioned furniture was obviously made much more recently. Something was always in the oven, or just out the oven, or arranged on large platters that tempted even the most reticent visitor to help themselves. Four huge thermos flasks (containing tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and the herbal drink of the day) dominated the counter nearest the door – which was never locked – within easy reach of anyone in need of warm liquids.

Unlike other things, the brightly lit kitchen hadn’t changed since Cora vanished eight months ago. A polite note had been slipped under Rose’s door, apologising for any inconvenience, and asking Rose not to worry about her. Rose had worried. Even after she started receiving postcards every month, never from the same place, she still worried; the detached comments that accompanied them were too unlike the smiling, chattering Cora who had first entered Rose’s kitchen.

Automatically, Cora sat in a large armchair; the one in the corner she used to curl up in, while Rose finished serving steaming cookies onto a plate (as she had been previously). With military efficiency, tea was poured – milk, one sugar – and set on the coffee table next to Cora, along with the cookies. The girl watched intently, avoiding Rose’s eyes, and when offered, took a cookie with a murmur of thanks.

Despite being sat so stiffly, there was a certain grace in the young woman’s movements – the uncurling of an arm, the momentary hovering of her hand before long fingers lifted the biscuit. A lithe elegance radiated from Cora and her flowing tops and myriads of scarves, especially in the days when Cora’s speech had been punctuated by flamboyant gestures, and soft, wide smiles that revealed an impishly pink tongue. At least, Rose observed, she was wearing her old tops and scarves now, rather than the ragged jeans and grey jumper that she had retreated to before leaving.

“You look much better, dear,” she told Cora. It was mostly true; the girl did not look as thin, but she was still tense, as tightly coiled as her splendid mass of hair. “Travelling obviously did you good.”

Cora nodded. “I needed some…some new air to breathe. Everything was all crowded in about me. Everything that’s happened here. Places mean too much.” After a silence, she added, “I was so confused.”

“It’s not surprising.” Rose sighed. “Well, you’re back. Does that mean you’re less confused?”

A shrug, a half-scared, half-hopeful glance at Rose. “Maybe. H-How is…how is Adam?”

Rose paused. Somehow she didn’t think it wise to tell Cora that Adam had spent weeks frantically searching for some sign of her. It was also probably unwise to explain how he had fallen from desperation to despondency, and that now, though usually reserved, he had almost completely withdrawn into his work.

“Adam is working very hard,” she decided upon. “He tells me his theories on - what was it? – the underworlds of ancient myths, have been developing well.”

Cora closed her eyes briefly. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she whispered.
Rose reached across the table, and pressed her hand against the girl’s. “I know you didn’t, dear,” she said softly. “Now are you really here to see me, or to fix yourself and that man downstairs?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but instead walked to the telephone, dialled down to Adam Smith, Flat 2b, and told him that it was about time for him to take a break, and that she’d have him a nice drink ready by the time he got upstairs.

Rose had barely put down the phone when Cora let out a soft, ‘oh!’ Her cookie had crumbled slightly, causing it to break into halves, one of which fell underneath the table.

“Sorry, Rose, I forgot how crumbly these things were. I’ll clean…”

Rose gently put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and picked up the fallen half herself. “Don’t worry about it.”

She turned away to pour Adam’s hot chocolate. When she turned back, Cora had absently pushed the halves of the cookie together on the table; besides a couple of gaps along the divide, it could have been whole again. Rose would have to check for those missing crumbs underneath the table…but later, because now the door handle was turning and Cora had started from her seat, and Rose hadn’t even managed to give the girl any last minute encouragement, before Adam entered and froze mid-stride, staring at the girl who had left him almost as broken as she was herself.

“Cora.” Adam’s voice was a hoarse whisper. He cleared his throat; fidgeted with reading glasses he had forgotten to remove.

She attempted a smile. “Hey.”

“You…It’s good to see you again.”

Rose pushed a mug into Adam’s hands, and nudged him to a chair opposite Cora.

“I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about, so I’ll leave you to it.”

Two doors and a miniature landing separated Rose’s kitchen and the lounge. Arthur smiled at her as she settled into her favourite armchair in front of the ornate fireplace. Rose was getting comfortable in front of the glowing coals when she realised she had left the lounge door ajar.

Rose promised herself that she wouldn’t listen to the voices drifting from the kitchen – they had only fallen into awkward pleasantries anyway. She definitely would not listen, and she would not feel increasing frustration as Adam and Cora skirted around the things they needed to talk about. And her heart would not leap as Adam finally burst out:

“Where were you!?”

“…I sent postcards.”

“To Rose.”

“Then you did read them.” Did Cora sound happy?

“Of course I did. I went after you the first couple of times.”

“…You did?”

“I was worried out of my mind! I had no idea what’d happened. If you’d done something... My god, I’d rather die than… I’d never forgive…”

“You aren’t to blame. It’s my fault, all of it – ”

“You’re not, I should have – ”

They started speaking at the same time, seeming to only half hear each other, and by the time one responded the other was already saying something else, crumbling sentences into crumbs of words.

“But it is my fault,
…never said anything because you weren’t ready
and I wish you could forgive me but I don’t know if you can
But I was never angry because there’s nothing to forgive,
I wish I’d believed you,
nothing to forgive at all
but after everything I didn’t understand how anyone could feel that about me,
And it didn’t change anything
because I was poisoned and I still feel poisoned, and maybe I was before too
No, Cora, God no,
…I bring it on myself
No!”

A thud: a fist hitting wood; an unbalanced chair?

“God damn it, it wasn’t your fault! What that b*****d did to you was because – because he was a sick ******** b*****d! It was not your – ”

A sob.

“Cora…oh God, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s – n-not you. It’s just – Adam, I - ”

A long silence followed. Maybe they now had their arms around each other, grieving over the past year together. It was what Rose preferred to imagine; it was better than the thought of the table, and the great gap beneath it, standing between them.

“Did you decide on a title for your thesis?” Cora spoke softly, but the change of topic was so sudden that Adam (and Rose, silently) let out a laugh of surprise. “It’s what we were talking about, that night, before…well, you know.”

“Before I messed up everything,” Adam sighed. “I finally decided on ‘glimpses of – ”

“What if everything wasn’t messed up?”

“…I don’t understand.”

“If we could go back, before you being messed up, and me being messed up twice over, and if I…if I had realised what I do now, about how much – how much you mean to me. Would…would…”

They dropped into whispers. Rose paced the room a couple of times. If they could be alright, her little community would be whole again.
Arthur smiled at her. She looked up, smiled back at him, and took him down from the mantelpiece. This was her favourite picture of him. It was nicer to remember him smiling like this – the smile he reserved for her, standing behind the photographer – than how he looked before it ended, after the chemotherapy had taken its toll.

Rose hugged Arthur to her, and sat once more. It was four weeks after Arthur passed on that she first noticed the exact same smile exchanged between Adam and Cora, as they drank tea and shared the last slice of a Victoria sponge in Rose’s kitchen. Neither of them were aware of it at the time, but Rose, sharply aware of the loss of a forty-nine year long smile, noticed it immediately. Then Cora’s smiles had been stolen.

Rose’s hope was a small one, but a growing one: that whispering alone in her kitchen, they’d find that smile again. If that could happen, it would make up for the half of Rose that, when she lost Arthur’s smile, had crumbled, lost out of sight beneath a table somewhere.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough - this is the whole story. It's a short story I'm working on with a limit of 1500-1750 words; I worked very hard to get the whole thing within the limit. It's also not so much based off the exact myth, as in using characters, as using concepts - that is, brutalisation, underworlds as personal darkness/loss, loss of past comforts, that kinda thing.

I'm aware Hades isn't the bad guy - I promise! I've read the myths...all of them...most 'heroes' would probably receive the death penalty numerous times over in some countries! As I said, this is more based off the potential metaphorical concepts arising from that myth than the actual characters.

I'm sorry there isn't really much more to tell - I wouldn't mind expanding the story a bit, but I'm not sure what I'd do other than elaborate on some things I had to cut out.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked what you read of it, and hope you'll keep an eye out for my other stuff smile