Waiting Room
By Amanda Marples
1st place
FIRST LINE COMPETITION SHORT STORY
£100
“No. Stop. Put it back.”
Nothing.
“Jake!” Still, nothing.
He’s not even hearing me.
He’s going to knock something off and she’s just sitting there looking at me. She hates me. What does she expect me to do? Let him wreck everything? He’s got to learn. He can’t be doing things like this when he’s at work. If he ever gets a job. At this rate who knows.
I can’t keep doing this.
I can’t look at him. I can’t lose it in here. What if I lose it and they ring social services? Breathe. Focus on something. Not the woman over there with the boy. Headphones on, same as Jake but much older. Late twenties? Probably not got a job. Probably not got a girlfriend. Probably living at home with his mother, still picking his clothes out for him. How does she do it? Is she just sleepwalking? Is this who we are now?
I can’t do this. Maybe it’s nothing? A phase? Maybe he’s just bloody naughty and we’ve made all this up to disguise what shit parents we are. Please God let it not be shit DNA. I’ve got to say something.
Amanda Marples is an academic mentor living in Rotherham with her husband and two noisy children. This is her fi rst competition win. She is currently in the second year of a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Sheffi eld where she is working on her second novel. When not writing, she enjoys going out on her skateboard and falling off it, which she then blogs about at motherboardskate. wordpress.com. She really is old enough to know better.