Pen Beneath The Bush

Reflections (The Cat Lady/The Letter VN)

Mitzi returns with both hands full of shopping bags and an envelope between her teeth. She dumps the shopping in the kitchen and enters the balcony where Susan sits with a coffee and cigarette. "This letter is for you Mrs. A."

Susan takes one last smoke and stands up with a cup in her hand. The steam keeps her face warm. "It's most likely a bill."

"I doubt it. Look how pretty they've made this envelope."

Susan takes the letter. "Looks and smells disgusting. Then again, I hate flowers and the colour yellow." She flips the envelope over to see if the sender is anyone she knows. Her heart jumped when she saw the sender's name. "Hannah Wright?"

"I know her," Mitzi says sitting by the balcony stand. "She's that famous woman in Luxbourne. The one that was born with the silver spoon in her mouth. Heard her husband was a real parasite."

Susan's body froze, all but her right arm that drops to her side. "Why would she be writing to me?"

Mitzi shrugs her shoulders. "Beats me. Read it."

Susan opens the letter and steers her head away from the site of the yellow paper covered in flowers. "Gosh this paper is even worse. Flowers all over the place." The sight of flowers triggers a tragic event in Susan's life where her infant daughter suffered a rare allergy to pollen and suffocated. It's the reason she hates flowers so much. "Mitzi?" She covers her face. "Can you read this out for me?"

"Alright then." Mitzi takes the letter out and skims through the page before reading it out aloud. "Wow, this is quite deep."

Dear Mrs Ashworth,

I've been following your blog for a while now. I managed to track your location and felt the urge to write a letter to you. Of course, I could have sent you a tweet, an email or a private message on your blog, but decided that a hand-written letter was more personal. I seem to get my words out more on pen-to-paper then the keyboard.

I've commented on a few of your blog entries before, so you might know me better as Buttercup Puppy. I love dogs, and buttercup is what my husband used to call me. I first stumbled across your blog through word of mouth. My friend and his friend were running an art exhibition together and I met a young lady who had lost her husband. She joined me and my friends for a cuppa, and she told me all about your blog. How you stop people from killing themselves.

I think it's a wonderful thing.

I wish I knew about it sooner. I could have shown my husband. Maybe he wouldn't have drunk himself to death.

A lot of things have changed since my husband's death. I told him time and time again not to drink, but the cancer took over. We argued about a lot of things. I really did my best to make things right, but sometimes I just felt it was never enough. We were planning to divorce anyway, until he had the diagnosis. I knew I had to stay with him right until the very end.

I don't know who I hate the most? Luke for destroying his body or myself for not stopping him in time? I'm doing anything to keep myself busy. Got a great business, beautiful family and plenty of money to do whatever I wish, but... I don't why I feel so empty all the time.

I miss Luke. I miss him every day. There's not a day that goes by when I don't think about him. I tell the children what a wonderful man he was. He was greatly misunderstood and had a tough upbringing, but his heart was in the right place. It always was.

Thank you for taking time to listen to me. I look forward to your entries, especially Poetry Saturday.

Yours

Hannah

Susan's astonishment is undeniable. Her eyes flicker as she peers over at the letter. "She was Buttercup Puppy the whole time?"

"How come you never figured that out. Luke used to call her Buttercup all the time in Big Brother and in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here."

"Wait!" Susan hawks. "You went to an art exhibition, lately didn't you? It was you that referred her to my blog wasn't it?"

Mitzi sees no point in denying it. "That's right. She's the 'it' girl of Luxbourne. But her eyes were so red and puffy, like she'd just been crying. I know what it's like to lose a husband. I thought I could comfort her. You don't realise how brilliant your blog is, Mrs A."

"You're the reason I got into all of this," Susan reminds Mitzi. She pats her back. "You have to take some form of credit too."

"It's not me writing the content though is it?"

"I just realised something," Susan says gazing at the sunset. "It's Saturday today! I haven't written any poetry this week. I just didn't have the inspiration today."

"And now you have it."

"I guess you're right Mitzi... is the laptop fully charged yet?"

"It should be."

"I better start writing then."

"Remember what they say Mrs A. Writing is like a fart. If you force it: it's likely to be crap."

Susan chuckles. "Who did you steal that joke from."

Mitzi shrugs her shoulders. "I found it on 4chan."

Susan takes a seat by her laptop. She considers herself a newbie to the world of technology even though her blog takes more of an interest than she expects. She's forty-one, and the black windows 10 notebook is her first ever computer.

There's still a lot of things that confuse Susan when it comes to computers. She leaves the updates and technical stuff into Mitzi's hands. The laptop's having a good day today. The internet's connection is stable for once.

Poetry Saturday: To The 'It' Girl

Money doesn't buy you happiness

You know that more than anybody

I'm surprised you would want to write

To me

I'm shocked that you stay to listen

To the ramblings of a cat lady

I'm sure you have better people

To see

Our fortunes greatly divide us

But there's one thing we have

In common: we've loved

And we've lost

So, dedicate this poem to you

Little blonde buttercup

We're all trapped in

This frost

It's perfectly normal to feel empty

Even with mountains of gold

But I promise you that the sunrise is coming

Because I can see it from the horizon

Susan's fingers hover around the keyboard. The mouse scrolls up. "It's not as good as last week's poem, but it's better than nothing."

Mitzi snatches the mouse of her and clicks submit. "This is brilliant. Hannah will really appreciate it. Shall I put the kettle on?"

"Go on then."