Breaking the Wall

Hello all. Please find below a small extract from 'Breaking The Wall' which is now available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle with 20% donated to Macmillan Cancer Support...

... Teresa knelt down at the unopened present lying beneath the Christmas tree. She had waited patiently for several hours until her husband had gone upstairs to the computer room; either for football results or porn - Teresa did not care which. She was just glad that he was out the room.

The present was still beautifully wrapped in shiny red foil with ribbons, large bow and a tag which simply read, “To the best sister in the world”. She brushed off a few loose pine needles that had settled on the neat parcel during the many weeks it had laid there. Since her sisters passing, she had never had the heart to open it, or even move it from its resting place.

She gently removed the ribbons and bow and carefully peeled back the tape which held the foil in place. She opened out the festive wrap to reveal the top lid of a brown box. With great sadness that she was now the one to be opening it, she lifted the cardboard lid and peeled back the loose white tissue paper wrapped around its contents.

She hadn’t seen them since she picked them out at the sports shop with the help of the young shop assistant last November. Unlike her sister, Teresa was no runner. All the different makes and styles of running shoes meant nothing to her, but the helpful assistant had assured her that these were the best. Teresa had mentioned they were for running the London Marathon and the assistant recommended a pair of “Nike Ladies Air Max +”. The technical spiel that followed with the sales pitch was completely lost on Teresa; all she knew was that they looked great with the solar red trim and translucent pink cushioned soles. They had very similar tastes so she was sure that her sister would approve of her choice.

True, at £120 they were way too expensive and she wouldn’t even dare mention the purchase to Phil, with her sister so ill. She hid the cost by paying cash - drawn out in smaller amounts from cash-points of several bank accounts over the space of a few weeks. He would protest bitterly about spending so much on a present for a person that may not even be around for Christmas. But back in early November, Teresa had to think positive. The treatment would work; her sister would get better; her sister would run the London Marathon; her sister would achieve her dream.

But she was sadly wrong. It was 2 months later and those hopes and dreams were long gone. This drew a small tear which rolled down her cheek and made a small wet impact onto the cardboard below.

She looked down at the pristine running shoes that sat in her hands - she was the same size as her sister.

Would they ever know?

Teresa would just be one face amongst 30 thousand others. They didn’t know who anyone looked like, after all everyone was just a number pinned to the front of a running top.

Teresa hadn’t run since University and she would have to put in some serious training over the next few months. But the thought of having a new “hobby” and the fact that she would be spending a lot of time out of the house appealed to her greatly. It could also be an opportunity for her to raise money for the Macmillan Nurses that had helped them both so much last year. She could probably raise hundreds of pounds worth of sponsorship at work without her husband ever knowing. It could be her “New Years Resolution”

Teresa realised that it was probably against the rules to run as someone else; and that her actual time on the day would be nowhere near her late sister’s more impressive predicted time, but should that ever be questioned afterwards then she would just say that she had a poor race. She could blame it on cramp, as far as Teresa knew that was a common complaint amongst many marathon competitors.

She still had most of her sisters I.D cards so collecting the running number in her name shouldn’t be a problem. Teresa also knew that she would have to come up with a convincing excuse to her husband for why she would have to “disappear” over that particular weekend, but she would worry about these finer points nearer the time.

Could she really finish the dream that her sister began? If so, she would truly be in her sister’s shoes…

Above extract taken from 'Breaking The Wall' by S R Boulton - helping Macmillan Cancer Support.