Alison was driving around absentmindedly, she was tired and after having a long argument with Mike, she just wanted silence. At first she did not notice the signs posted against trees and letterboxes, she had been following them without thinking and now she found herself at the destination.
Garage sale!
The sign was bright and cheery, unlike the contents on display. Everything was sprawled out in the front garden, it looked as though, at the beginning someone had tried to create some semblance of organisation, then gave up half way through.
The garden itself was unruly, bushes and trees grew without much interference from man or gardener.
She drove past the sale, looking for a place to park her car. Though there were few people at the sale, parking seemed to be rare in this neighbourhood. Finally finding her space, she pulled in and wandered back towards the sale.
She found it slightly exiting, perversely so. Rummaging through someone’s intimate belongings, things which defined childhoods, teenage years, all sitting outside, bearing themselves for the world to paw through.
The woman running the sale was quite large, a floral patterned dress which accentuating the wrong areas and minimising the right ones. She sat in a deck chair, a glass of water beside her. Her face was mean and scrunched, she scowled at each person there. As though trying to mentally force them to buy something or leave. Alison guessed the sale wasn’t her idea. Two children, around ten, ran haphazardly around the garden, barely missing the items on display. The back draft created as one of them ran by brought down a stack of precariously balanced t-shirts. The woman in the dress yelled at them to slow the goddamned hell down, then shifting her massive weight, she struggled from the chair and waddled over to the pile of clothes. Being nearby, Alison walked over and offered to help “Thanks, ‘preciate it.” they folded in silences for a few moments, the sun blaring down on them. “Have you seen anything you like yet?” “No, not really. But I haven’t looked though much yet.” “Well, if you do let me know, I’ll be over there.” the woman wandered away, leaving Alison alone again.
She shifted through the boxes and boxes of items, seeing nothing. The boxes were labelled, but bizarrely. Their contents never reflecting the name. She stumbled across a box of baby clothes, slightly stained, in a box marked ‘Frames’. They chilled her, reminding her of why she had ended up here. Their argument had been explosive. She was pregnant. He had a wife. They screamed at each other for hours, until eventually it was only him. Screeching and screeching at her. He was damned if he was paying for her bastard child. She wasn’t going to destroy his marriage, she was just a selfish slut, a bitch.
She didn’t want anything from him. She figured he would want to know. She had been so exited she hadn’t thought of how he would react. It was as much a shock to her as it was to him. She had been told she was barren. She would never be able to have children. But yet, here she was. Two months pregnant.
As she wrapped her hands protectively around her stomach, she felt a gripping pain. Something hot and wet ran down her thighs. She felt light headed, she needed to sit. One thought played through her mind, “No. No. No.” She reached out to brace herself against the box. As she collapsed she could hear the fat woman calling out, running towards her. She closed her eyes, surrendering to oblivion.
