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I’d Never Seen Her Like That Before<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The building was a place of shuffling: slippers, cards, and mortal coils. It was stiflingly hot in the day room, and the sun through the large glass roof did little to help this. Trays of stewed vegetables were wheeled in on squeaking trollies and squeaking voices told tall tales of yesteryear. Why the hell did I want to be here?<\/p>\n \u2018She\u2019s over there.\u2019 My sister led the way through the labyrinth of threadbare chairs, filled with threadbare glares of helpless intrigue. Why the hell did I want to be here?<\/p>\n Our Nan was in the corner, by herself, reading a book. She looked lonely. She looked out of place. I felt for her.<\/p>\n \u2018Hey Nan!\u2019 My sister always had the ability to smooth over the cracks of any situation. Nan was miserable; I knew it before even speaking to her. She was an insular person; always had been; there were too many people around for her to maintain anonymity: she was bound to be bothered every now and then.<\/p>\n \u2018Are those for me?\u2019 She took the bunch of throttled tulips from my hand and drew me in close and kissed my cheek. She had more stubble than me, I was sure.<\/p>\n \u2018They sure are.\u2019 My sister elbowed me as I looked around the room. She says I have a discerning gaze, but I think she means resting-bitch-face. <\/em>She\u2019s too kind. She hates that phrase. \u2018Are you warm enough?\u2019<\/p>\n What kind of question is that in this weather?<\/p>\n Nan pulled her cardy close around her neck. \u2018I think so. I feel very changeable these days.\u2019 She was looking over Tessa\u2019s shoulder, smiling. Tessa leaned in and smoothed her hair from her forehead. In an armchair across the room a man looked up from his paper every now and then and seemed to take us all in.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t concentrate. I had an exam to revise for: poor Ulrich\u2026or Yurik. Whatever his bloody name is.<\/em> I needed to get my head down. Tessa made small talk: the weather, our aunt and her dribbling little dog, our dad (bad topic, apparently) – but Nan wasn\u2019t really listening. We sat with her for about half an hour before we called it. As we stood, she got a message on her mobile and smiled. We walked back though the labyrinth past the man with the newspaper and heard a ding<\/em>. Another message. Another smile.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Alex Eastlake<\/strong> has\u00a0been writing creatively now for about five years and has been published in Popshot<\/em> magazine and shortlisted for other magazine\u00a0submissions. He’s currently studying English Literature and Creative writing with the Open University, alongside working as a tree surgeon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’d Never Seen Her Like That Before The building was a place of shuffling: slippers, cards, and mortal coils. It was stiflingly hot in the day room, and the sun through the large glass roof did little to help this. Trays of stewed vegetables were wheeled in on squeaking trollies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-17220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17220","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17220"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17244,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17220\/revisions\/17244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}