1. Tartan Blanket


    Date: 9/9/2016, Categories: Cheating, Author: marlowe, Rating: 6, Source: LushStories

    “Tartan Blanket” (circa-1968) From the day their mother and father informed family and friends that their daughter, Victoria had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, it took less than four months before her battle against the disease finally ended and her life slipped slowly away. In the last few days of her life her body had been reduced from a nine stone beautiful young woman to a weak and helpless skeletal frame. With skin hanging like soft paper tissue from frail bones, she was unrecognisable and resembled a woman more than twice her age. Ellen Brand told friends and relatives that Victoria was in so much pain and suffering that when her life ended it was a welcome relief. After the funeral Ellen fought with her own recovery. But after too many sleepless nights, too many pills and too many severe bouts of depression leading up to, and after her daughter’s death, she eventually lost the fight and spent the rest of her life lost to pills and despair. Eddie Brand was no stranger to death. He had seen enough during his National Service. He had endured the pain, the sorrow and the anger when the life of a friend or loved one is unexpectedly taken away. He was also aware that when it happens we always look for someone to blame, and that someone is usually that devout man in heaven. But even after losing too many friends in World War II and spending too many sleepless nights drinking and cursing at a bible, he wasn’t prepared for the loss of a child. If he had remembered about ...
    the heater not working in his father’s Rover 90, he would have worn a leather jacket over his thin cotton shirt. The cold weather never seemed to bother his father. His shirt unbuttoned at the front and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding a cigarette. If the truth were known his resilience was probably the reason why he hadn’t replaced the thermostat in the car. But nothing seemed to bother him. Even his deformed left arm didn’t prevent him from becoming a tailor. The badly scratched tattoo on his father’s left arm was a permanent reminder of a heavy drinking session during his National Service days. He told everyone it was a scorpion, but with his deformity it could easily have been mistaken for a Lobster. It was quite bizarre to think that he had gone all the way through World War II relatively unscathed. But when the war ended, his father and six other troops were driving through France in an army vehicle when the driver – who was apparently drunk at the time – collided with an obstacle at the side of the road. After losing control of the steering wheel the vehicle turned over and landed in a ditch. The six soldiers were thrown from the back of the vehicle and other than a few cuts and bruises they were relatively okay. His father was less fortunate. After falling under the weight of the vehicle his left arm was crushed beneath one of the wheels. Medics told him that the soft ground probably saved him from losing his arm. ...
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