Finding Herself on a Monday
That Monday, Emily woke earlier than usual. Not from the alarm, not from any noise—she simply opened her eyes. As if some internal motor, the one that had dragged her out of bed on schedule for the past three years, had finally sputtered out. The clock read 6:42. Outside, sleet fell in thick, grey sheets, clinging to the window as if determined to seep through the cracks. The air in the flat felt thick, foreign. Something about the morning was already wrong.
She lay still, listening to the radiator groan—an uneven, whimpering sound, like something scratching from within. Probably another pressure drop. Or maybe the house was cold. Or perhaps it was her, gone cold inside. No one could measure where the fault truly lay.
The kitchen was as she’d left it: a white mug with a hairline crack, a fridge plastered with magnets from cities she’d never visited, a stale loaf on the cutting board. Her hand reached for the drawer where the cat food used to be. But the cat was gone. Had been, for a year. Yet still—her hand moved on its own. Memory refused to let go.
Emily worked at a copy shop attached to a print firm on the fringes of Manchester. Six years now. The place reeked of paper, toner, vending-machine coffee, and someone else’s perpetual exhaustion. Every day felt like a carbon copy of the one before. Faces blurred together, conversations were worn thin, meaning had long since faded. Her coworkers were predictable: Alfie with his endless jokes about his wife, Gemma who conducted her love dramas even in the loo on speakerphone, and old Mr. Thompson, the printer, whose life had ended the day his terrier died. And her—no longer a person, just a mechanism in a system where feelings and breakdowns had no place.
She caught her reflection in the mirror. A face without distinction. Not old, not weary. Just unfamiliar. A thought flickered: *What’s the point?* Then—nothing. Because there was no answer. There hadn’t been for a long time.
She didn’t go to work. Just never left. Sat on the bus and watched her office slide by like a stage set. She was an audience member now, too tired even to clap. She rode to the other side of town, where, years ago at fifteen, she and Lucy had shared juice cartons and kissed boys whose names she’d forgotten. Back then, everything was different. Sweet. Free.
Now, a mint-green kiosk stood on that corner, its menu scrawled by hand. Emily bought a cinnamon latte—her first ever. She’d always hated the taste. The first sip burned her tongue, and inside—it was like someone had flicked on a light.
She wandered through the estates, watching an old woman crumble bread for pigeons, as if dividing not a loaf but her soul. A teenager laughing as he toppled into the slush. A woman in a scarf adjusting a pram. It all unfolded like a play, and for once, she wasn’t acting—just watching. And in that watching, there was something strange—not pain, not joy, but warmth. Humanity. As if she’d been given permission to feel again.
By two, she walked into a salon. No appointment.
“What’ll it be?” asked the stylist.
“A cut. A sharp one. I want my mum to panic.”
“Got it,” the woman smirked, raising her scissors.
Strands fell like the past—each a memory, a grudge, a stifled scream. When she stepped out with her new, short, daring crop, she felt lighter. As if someone had finally left, someone who’d sat inside her too long, making it hard to breathe.
She bought a pasty with cabbage, ate it on the pavement. Went into a bookshop and picked the most useless title: *Lectures on Metaphysics*. Just to prove she could. Choose. Act. Be odd. Be *herself*. Suddenly, she laughed—really laughed. No reason. Tears welled, passersby turned, but she didn’t care. Because for the first time, it was her—laughing, alive.
That evening, she returned home. Her mother stood by the window in the same cardigan she wore every Sunday while roasting beef.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Just walking.”
“You’re all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank God,” her mother said, setting the pot to boil.
They ate in silence. Only the clink of cutlery. Candlelight trembled on the sill.
“I’m quitting tomorrow,” Emily said. “And taking a course. Dunno which yet.”
“Just don’t go quiet,” her mother replied. “Quiet’s like damp. Erodes everything.”
Emily nodded. Because on that Monday, in a city drowning in sleet and tired faces, she’d finally felt it—not needed, not owed, not correct. Just herself. And nothing else was required.
