{"id":1323,"date":"2008-08-01T08:17:50","date_gmt":"2008-08-01T08:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2008-08-01T08:17:50","modified_gmt":"2008-08-01T08:17:50","slug":"kara-sue-deserves-something-better-says-chelsey-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/kara-sue-deserves-something-better-says-chelsey-flood\/","title":{"rendered":"Kara-Sue deserves something better – says Chelsey Flood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kara-Sue, You Deserve Better Things <\/span><\/p>\n

We bonded over broken bones,
displayed our wounds
at check out number seven.<\/p>\n

Her namebadge said Kara-Sue
and I thought it unfair
only she had one,
but I didn't say my name.
There wasn't really time.
An old man scowled
behind us
stinking of rank flannel
sending out his bitterness.<\/p>\n

I saw Kara-Sue
unloading tins of sweetcorn
with the delicate hand
that hadn't recently been stood on
by a horse.
I grinned and she waved,
showed me her braces
and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

On Monday she was on the deli,
a plastic glove on her good hand.
She told me about her allergies
and I winced,
Red meat, chicken and vegetables
and you work in here?
I apologised for the p\u00e2t\u00e9
she was that moment
spatuling from its trough.<\/p>\n

An old lady bristled
at our chatter
and I hurried it along,
thinking
Kara-Sue, you deserve better things.<\/p>\n

I picked up my
brown bread and skimmed milk,
paid for it quietly.<\/p>\n

Kara-Sue sitting at the check out
wearing her name badge
Calmly.<\/p>\n

I want to rip it off.<\/p>\n

I'm terrified I will watch her get old
like I watched Sally get old
on Home and Away<\/span>,
gradually,
day by day<\/p>\n

I want to tell her to get up.
To go! Quick! While she can
but I suspect I'm being irrational
(where irrational
means the truth
too loudly.)
so I smile instead
and ask her boring questions.
I play along.<\/p>\n

I buy my brown bread
and skimmed milk
quietly.
Don't take up too much time
or scream at staff to leave.<\/p>\n

I wave goodbye to Kara-Sue.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Chelsey Flood lives in Cornwall, England. Her short story The Grief Benches<\/span> will appear in the Born in the 1980s<\/span> anthology from Route Publishing later this year.
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kara-Sue, You Deserve Better Things We bonded over broken bones,displayed our woundsat check out number seven. Her namebadge said Kara-Sueand I thought it unfaironly she had one,but I didn't say my name.There wasn't really time.An old man scowledbehind usstinking of rank flannelsending out his bitterness. I saw Kara-Sue unloading tins of sweetcornwith the delicate handthat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}