Sunday 21 December 2008

Quests 2


Mary Wainright dropped her car keys picnicking in a meadow by the river near Streetley. She and her boyfriend and his cousin searched for hours, her locked Ford sitting smugly nearby. They quartered the field again and again, tempers fraying.


Mary tried prayer, anger, despair and cold disillusion but the keys remained resolutely lost. Her boyfriend called out a locksmith who for an outrageous Sunday Call Out charge let them back into their own vehicle. Her boyfriend was then impossible all the way home.


The following day Mary changed the locks on the car and changed her boyfriend.


Now she’s Mrs Mary Dickinson. And Sunday afternoons she often takes her young family to her “favourite” picnic spot by the river near Streetley. And while they eat, she has a cursory look around, just in case fate offers up her old car keys and proves her right for a change.

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