#4 CHANGE OF PLANS

This is a story in six sentences, an idea I got from sixsentences.blogspot.com. There is also a site called Narrative.com that publishes stories of six words but that's going too far, don't you think?

Mary was briskly approaching Harrods food emporium eager to choose from the vast array of gourmet luxuries for her luncheon with her lover, Bernard, a scientist working for the government, when she felt someone or something grab her ankle.

Startled, she looked down at a greasy-looking woman sitting on a tattered blanket with a baby, perhaps 18 months old, murmuring a plea for milk for the child preferably in the form of spare change.

Slightly rattled by her near fall, Mary entered Harrods and began filling her basket with all the delicacies Bernard loved, buoyant in the certainty that he was finally going to propose, blissfully unaware that he was planning to end their two-year affair that afternoon if he could muster the courage which he must.

As she hummed a tune going through the checkout, packing her large shopping bag with loving care, her cell phone rang and it was Bernard himself ringing to say he was sorry to have to cancel their luncheon that in fact he was leaving for the states that night with his wife and daughter for an extended stay, all very sudden, yes unexpected, nerve-wracking actually but what could he do?

Mary bit her lip to keep from screaming in such an imposing milieu realizing she couldn't retrace her steps and undo the shopping, the foolish sentiment put into it, or the hefty charge on her credit card and was in fact arranging his favorite smoked herring on the top of the bag next to the out-of-season strawberries and a selection of imported cheeses.

She knew she had to stay poised until she got into a taxi and reached her own doorstep and was hastily exiting the store when she heard the familiar refrain from the greasy-looking woman on the blanket begging for spare change for the child's milk, and Mary thinking it was years ago when she first heard this mewling, looked down, a mangled bawl escaping her throat, and dropped her shopping bag with the expensive items bought especially for her lover who would never know what he missed onto the wretched blanket much to the surprise of the woman and the delight of the child.