Dear Cassandra (today my mother died)

Cassandra

Happy Halloween, y'all. It's November and not a spooky story, but eh. Late and slightly inaccurate is practically my brand.

Anyway, shoutout to lingojam auto generated sentences for the inspo, and to Life Is Strange for destroying me on a fundamental level! (This is mostly a joke.)

Enjoy!

tw// drinking, and one slightly gory simile/metaphor

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The glass hairbrush was cold in her warm hands. She took it from the dresser, where it lay on the desk. She took it, and she sat down, watching the mirror as she brushed neat strokes.

Brown eyes stared back at her. Katie had always been told she had her mother's eyes, deep and easy to get lost in. Like mud, she made the comparison more than once. A good kind of mud.

Her mother was dead, now; she would be driving ten minutes out of town for the funeral. Her hair was a mess, so she was brushing it.

She took a few minutes to finish the matter, long strands being pulled into a polite bun. The glass hairbrush got hidden away when she was done, tucked into a drawer rather than being visible to the world.

Katie then moved her attention to her chosen outfit. Plain black dress, slightly above the knee, with short sleeves. A golden chain, with a sailboat on it, owned by her mother over half a decade ago. She had been fifteen when it was gifted to her.

Getting up, she opened her closet and withdrew a silk jacket. Then she slipped on a random pair of black flats, as the exact set was less important.

A white silk jacket went well with any shoes. Never mind it was colour at a funeral, she knew there would be far more blasphemous deeds committed there anyway.

With one last warning tone, her phone alarm started to cry shrilly. Katie turned it off and opened the usual recording app, to which she spoke a few lines before closing it for the time being.

She tucked her phone into her purse and stepped out the door. Locking it carefully, she went down the hall and got into the apartment elevator. It stopped at the bottom floor, where she continued to the parking lot and got into her car.

The car spluttered to a start and she began driving. After a minute, she turned on the radio, flicking through stations until she found one playing gentle pop.

Bopping her head along to the music, she drove past the dirt piles lining the road. Those had been a recent addition, hardly three weeks old. So far, nothing had been said on the pest problem.

Moles, voles, or gophers. That was the bet. She didn't know the difference between a mole and a vole, and she never bothered to learn.

Up until last week, she hadn't even known voles existed.

Coming to the town's centre roundabout, Katie pressed the break and tapped her fingers absentmindedly on the steering wheel. Her fingernails were kept short, never the type for long acrylics. Aunt June had all but ruined the style for her.

She might be attending the funeral, with her painted nails and furs and all she entailed. If she did then Uncle Rich would too, supporting his wife, though there was hardly a need for support.

When the last few cars blocking her way passed, she took a left. She could now see the old church house in the distance, and the graveyard off the side.

It had yet to be refurbished, put on a waiting list that spanned years due only to negligence. There was once a fire, and then there was another, and now it happened so often the smell of smoke never quite faded.