It was the 21st of April 1918, and one Mr. Mark Westbury was found stumbling out of his house at 8:30am, scrambling through the hustle and bustle of nine-to-five business workers. A stickler for rules, 8:30 was the latest he could ever think of arriving – his job started at 8:45 sharp – and yet there he was, barely metres away from his house, bolting through a daily routine that took twenty minutes on a good day. There was no mistake in thinking he would be late. The footpaths were filled with children on their way to school, arms spread like birds, giggling gleefully. Despite the bubbling sounds of children around him, Mark could not find it in himself to be remotely cheerful, and not just because he would surely be late to work. The monotonous …show more content…
He lifted his chin, back ramrod straight as he walked dutifully down the street, but the murmurs of the women found a path to his thoughts. This was why he left early in the morning. It was not to see the sun pull its tail of crisp blue over the sky, or to hear the merry chirping of birds on a windowsill; it was to avoid this- this shame, this overwhelming feeling of guilt pushing in on his chest as if one of the women were simply going to march up to him, wrap slender fingers around his beating heart and tear it free from his chest. But these were things he could never express to anyone, for this hole he had dug himself into was of a pain saved exclusively for himself. A man such as Mark Westbury did not deserve any better than to feel the backlash of his cowardice. His carefully …show more content…
Westbury. His exit from the office could have been referred to as a hobble rather than a walk, as he found himself tripping over thin air. Nothing would settle this more than a pint at the pub, he thought privately, rounding a corner in the direction away from home. Regaining some of the elegance in his step with the anticipation of beer, Mark strolled down the lane freely. That was, until he toppled over, this time not on thin air, but into a wall with a face, and a dress, and perhaps a woman who was not a wall at