The alarm buzzed and she stretched out her hand to quickly quieten it before it woke the whole house. The red numbers shined at her as she opened her eyes. 4:30 was such a heavenly hour to wake up.
She gently edged herself outside her bed, trying not to waken the adonis that still lay sleeping by her side. Luckily, he didn’t move and the slight rumble of his snore confirmed she hadn’t woken him. She slipped out of the room and padded softly to the bathroom.
Once inside, with the door closed, she switched on the light. She stood in front of the mirror and took a look at her reflection. She had her toothbrush in her hand and was about to automatically go through the routine operation of brushing her teeth when a flicker of light shot through the mirror.
Susan froze. Her arm was raised to her mouth holding her toothbrush. There was a slight ripple in the atmosphere and as Susan stood motionless, the room around her changed. She was still inside a bathroom but it wasn’t the one she remembered being in when she got up early this morning.
She looked at the toothbrush in her hand. It was hers. She turned around and looked at the bathroom she was now standing in. It was small and she had a strong feeling of deja vu. There was a standard sized bath behind her with a shower curtain drawn. She felt confused. She knew where she was but how had she got here?
She shook her head. This was too strange. There was then a tapping at the door.
“Sue, are you going to be much longer in there?” It was a man’s voice, one she recognised well. What was going on?
“Umm, I’ll be out in a minute.” She responded. She looked at her reflection. The woman who stared back at her was herself but different. Her face looked like one she had known for so long but was no longer her own. Her hair was long again, her face a little plumper than she was now used to. Another flicker inside the mirror. This time she saw it.
She stumbled from the basin and found herself sitting on the rim of her bath. It was her bath. She was back in her old bathroom. The toothbrush had dropped to the floor as she stumbled back and she raised her hand to her head. She felt strange; somehow disconnected.
There was a tapping at the door. “Hey, Susan, you gonna be long? I really need to go for a piss.” It was Danny’s voice.
“You can come in.” She croaked.
Why was this happening?
Danny entered the bathroom, still sleepy eyed. She looked at him and her heart lurched.
"You really gonna go for that jog? It sure doesn't look like you wanna."
She looked up at him from her seat on the bath and gave him a wan smile. "Maybe you should come with me."
And with that Danny laughed tapping his tummy. "Maybe I should..."
Susan smiled. She had never believed he might consider joining her. Why was that?
"You know, I think you're great as you are." He smiled.
"Yes, I remember you saying." And she did. She had believed he didn't want her to change. She had got annoyed every time he said it. "But will you love me when I have lost the weight too?"
"What? Of course. silly! Now are you going to leave or am I gonna have to piss in front of you?"
Susan blushed, as she realised just how much she had really missed him. "Of course, I'll leave you now..." She beamed, "but once you're done you have five minutes to get ready because we're going for that run!" Danny saluted her cheekily with a big grin on his face.
"I might not be able to keep up with you, Susie Cue."
Susan walked slowly out of the bathroom. She had been here once before. She had made one set of decisions and believed she knew what was going on in Danny's head.
She wouldn't make that mistake again.
She would, however, make many others. The thought made her smile.
.png)
Drop in the Ocean is a weekly show over on Discord in the BuddyUp server.
You can join us anytime by clicking here. When you first arrive you will be welcomed and directed to introduce yourself. After all, we want to know who our new buddy is :smiley:.
The Drop in the Ocean airs every Monday at 8pm (UTC) and together all the buddies discuss their individual posts on the word of the week.
This week's word is:
Ambiguity
If you want a full understanding of the word, I can highly recommend reading @youhavewing's post, it certainly helped me with my own understanding.
If you found the above story at all ambiguous, you might want to read my earlier instalments of Susan's story as I covered the words disconnected and resolution. they may, perhaps, add some clarity.
If you are new to Steem and are still trying to find your feet, then there's a great community over on Discord that are there to help. All you need do is click the banner below, the one for Steem Terminal. Just hover your mouse and you'll see it change.
Steem Terminal is just one of many great communities. It has been set up to help. You can read more about it here and here.
I think there are many words that would describe your story, not only ambiguity :) I like how a normal day changed in something special and she was probably going back to the moments that she was missing. I wonder what happened to Danny as I understand that they were not together anymore. And what kind of mistakes has she done? It's interesting to think about all of these questions and build my own end of the story :)
You shared with us a great idea and I like how you write. I can imagine her 'huh'? feeling when she realized she was in a different bathroom :)
Thank you for sharing!
I agree, @delishtreats. I actually found 'ambiguity' a difficult word to grapple with at first, then I read @youhavewings' post and the story opened up. The added difficulty at the outset, is that this instalment is an addition to two earlier posts.
Once I embraced the word and eased into the unkowing of 'ambiguity', the story kind of wrote itself.
Thanks for taking the time to read my offering. It is always warming to the heart when a new connection has begun. ❤
Posted using Partiko Android
Hi @juliamulcahy, I'm @checky ! While checking the mentions made in this post I noticed that @youhavewing doesn't exist on Steem. Did you mean to write @youhavewings ?
If you found this comment useful, consider upvoting it to help keep this bot running. You can see a list of all available commands by replying with
!help.Thank you @checky. I will edit that right now. :)
Thanks for learning me a new English word! Your title triggered me because I didn't know the translation for ambiguity 🤔
Beautiful story and you've pointed me in the wrong direction really liked the Huh moment in the bathroom and how it actually ends completely normal.... or not🤔
Hehe. Glad you enjoyed it and happy to have introduced you to a new word. 😊
Hi juliamulcahy,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Congratulations @juliamulcahy! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click here to view your Board
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPYou got a curie! Congrats, @juliamulcahy :) A double curie for DITO? That's pretty cool!
Thank you for the mention in your post, that was very sweet. What I would like to know is how you got that red text in your formatting of this post?! I would be so grateful if you shared.
What a mysterious saga....I'm on pins and needles trying to figure out where this is going and what exactly is happening with Susan. Maybe the bathroom has a vortex in it or she's living dual lives within a parallel universe ;) This ambiguity is sparking so many possibilities to think about.
Wonderful writing, @juliamulcahy
Hehehe! Thank you, Wings. Glad it’s got you wondering. Is it okay that as the writer, I am wondering too? Lol.
As for the red text, I stoles it from those guys at BuddyUp who write up the DITO review. @Penderis shared a little secret that if you change the URL at the top of any post to begin as ‘steemd’ you can check out the code.
So feel free to take a look 👀
https://steemd.com/dropintheocean/@juliamulcahy/the-little-voice-embraces-ambiguity
Tripple curie. you also got one :)
Nice article thanks. 👍👏
Posted using Partiko iOS
Thank you.
Congrats on the curie :)
I enjoy this story and it might be odd but I enjoy it a bit more when I am finished reading, when presenting it in dito I realised the fun part is trying to make all the connections and setting up the timeline. Each chapter gives a bit more info but nothing concrete just enough to keep the mystery which feeds a theory.
Posted using Partiko Android
Glad you enjoyed presenting it in DITO. I may have to get you to do that another time when I’m there just so I can listen to your perspective. I think that might be fun. 😀
Wow. This is a fine piece of writing.
It hooks and never lets go.
Intriguing ending, but it goes along with the premise. Would we not all wish to be able to rewind, relive and repair. Ambiguity is not only the aparent contradiction in words or actions, it is also inability ot make a decision.
If we could change something in our past, what would we change? What repercussions would that change entail? Would we be willing to pay that price. Would we rather "err" again, knowing that the error will also bring something good?
Fascinating!
Ah thanks, @hlezama. It was fun playing about with the word through my fiction. Quite challenging at times though. 😊
Posted using Partiko Android
@juliamulcahy !! I don't know how I missed your post - I probably missed a couple others too - I should go back n check.
Firstly, congratulations on your Curie!
I love that you are taking Susan's POV and crafting each chapter with the week's DITO cue. I might have said this before - call it De javu. LOL
Very curious indeed to find out what she saw ...