FLASH FICTION WINNER
Unwanted Things, by Alison Wassell
Five days after the funeral, I find my old typewriter in my parents’ loft under a pile of Jackie magazines. The magazines advised my seventies self on how to ensnare the boy of my dreams, and hold onto him, which I never did get the hang of. The typewriter told me to tether my non-boy related ambitions, since secretary to a man in a shiny suit was as far as I was likely to progress. The word secretary makes me think of my dad, who always pronounced it ‘seckitery’. Thinking about my dad makes me sad, and I hold the typewriter responsible, so I take it to a charity shop, where the woman behind the counter shakes her head.
“There’s no demand for typewriters these days,” she says. “Nor typists, for that matter.” I feel compelled to point out that I was a secretary, not a typist. In my head there is a hierarchy of disappointing occupations, and I am anxious not to be at the bottom of it.
“Same difference,” she sniffs. “Either way, nobody wants you now.” I start to cry, partly because I’m still thinking about my dad, partly because I suspect she’s right. The woman’s face turns softer. She stretches out her arms towards shelves of chipped china and lost-lidded Pyrex, rails of bobbled knitwear and past-its-best Primark.
“Welcome to the world of unwanted things,” she says. She comes out from behind the counter and I see she’s wearing a tattered tutu under her cardigan. Varicose veins bulge beneath her laddered pink tights.
“Not much call for a geriatric ballerina,” she adds. In grubby pumps she pirouettes and pliés, does a pas de deux with a headless mannequin in a shiny suit. The mannequin reminds me of my first boss, his coffee breath on the back of my neck as I tap, tap tapped on my typewriter, his uninvited hands on my waist as he squeezed past me in the kitchen.
“Not much call these days for sleazy men in their shiny suits,” I say, tapping the geriatric ballerina’s shoulder and taking over, waltzing the mannequin out of the back door, where I upend him in a large plastic refuse bin. I smack my palms together, ridding them of the memory and find I feel better, but still sad, about my dad, who was proud of me being a seckitery.
Back inside, the ballerina is en pointe, pricing up broken-spined paperbacks.
“Does anyone ever buy them?” I ask. She says she’s never sold a thing, all the time she’s been here, but unwanted things need somewhere to go, and so does she.
I pick up my typewriter, which makes me think of my dad, who bought it for me so I could practise my typing, thinking he was buying me a better life, and never knew about my sleazy boss in his shiny suit. Carefully, I carry it home.
Alison Wassell is a short story, flash, and micro-fiction writer from Merseyside, UK. Her work has been published by Bath Flash Fiction Award, Roi Faineant, The Phare, Litro, Ellipsis Zine, Reflex Fiction, Retreat West and Funny Pearls.
