Flashback story – Maisie Howard
This is a story submitted as part of the Flashback week competition. It was written by Izzy Stuart for the game What will be, will be on OngoingWorlds.
Maisie Howard
Maisie smiled as she looked to her student. Saturday, it was finally Saturday. Luckily for her she could go back to school on Monday. Be a teacher again. She was pleased for the time off, but she missed her work. She missed what the students thought of her. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she missed the excitement.
“It was…nice to see you Natalie.” she smiled. Although she wanted to talk to her more, she was tired, so was Natalie, and they were both heading home.
It was that night that Maisie realized what she missed most, and what she remembered most. The little details that made her who she was, and what she did. She sat comfortably on the edge of her luxury duvet, looking at the pine dresser across the room.
A pine dresser. Pine. She remembered the huge pine trees that grew outside her house. The small forest that accumulated over the years, which had lay the as the playground for all local children in her village. Many good times spent climbing trees, building dens, playing hide and go seek. Many years spent running almost savagely around the thick forest floor, careful no to fall on anything too sharp. The hours spent worrying their parents about where they were, or what contraptions they were building.
As darkness would fall along the edge of the pines, casting long shadows onto the ground below, and the cold air came crisp to the bare and dirt-streaked faces of the children, people would begin heading home. Home to their mothers food and their fathers games. And Maisie, being a normal child, did the same, almost.
Maisie would return to a loving family, as did the others, but she knew that she was lucky to be here. Lucky to be with a mother and father, who provided games and food. With bed-time stories and goodnight kisses. The children she played with didn’t think of this as they returned to their homes, no, it didn’t even cross their tiny minds. For Maisie was used to a life before love, a life of abandonment. But she had found love, and parents, and a good home, and she was thankful for this everyday.
She would run into her mothers arms, and be greeted with the apron she had been wearing for that day, before launching on her father, who would pick her up and spin her round, his business suit flaying at the bottom of his blazer. It had always felt rough against her arms when he hugged her, and smelt of wet dog when he had drudged through the snow.
And as Maisie thought back upon her happiest moments in life, she wondered and hoped about the life she and her husband would provide for their child. For if even an orphan could find the love she did so desperately seek, then perhaps the child’s life would be good enough after all.
