**Finding Herself on a Monday**
That Monday, Emily woke up earlier than usual. Not because of the alarm, not because of any noise—just opened her eyes. As if some inner engine, the one that had yanked her out of bed on schedule for the last three years, had finally sputtered out. The clock read 6:42. Outside, sleet was falling—grey, slushy, as if determined to seep through the window cracks. The air in the flat felt thick, unfamiliar. And something about that morning was just *off* from the start.
She lay there, listening to the radiator groan. The sound was uneven, almost whining, like something was scratching inside. Probably low pressure again. Or maybe the house was cold. Or perhaps *she* was the one who’d gone cold—no one could measure where the real breakdown had happened.
The kitchen was as she’d left it: the white mug with the crack, the fridge plastered with magnets from towns she’d never visited, the stale loaf on the cutting board. Her hand reached for the cat-food drawer. But there was no cat. Not for a year now. Still—her hand moved on its own. Memory wouldn’t let go.
Emily worked at a copy shop attached to a printing firm on the outskirts of Manchester. Six years now. It smelled of paper, toner, vending-machine coffee, and somebody’s permanent exhaustion. Every day was a carbon copy of the last. Same faces, same worn-out small talk, same hollow purpose. Her coworkers were predictable: Dave with his never-ending jokes about his wife, Sarah, who even took her dramatic love-life calls in the loo, and old Mick, the printer, whose life had effectively ended when his bulldog died. And her? She wasn’t a person anymore—just a cog in a system where feelings, let alone meltdowns, had no place.
She caught her reflection in the mirror. No defining features. Not old, not tired. Just… not hers. And the thought shot through her: *What’s the point?* Followed by silence. Because there *was* no answer. Not anymore.
She didn’t go to work. Just… didn’t. Sat on the bus and watched her office drift past like a stage set. She was an audience member now—too tired to even clap. Rode it to the other side of town, where she and Lucy had once sipped carton juice in Year 9 and snogged boys whose names they’d long forgotten. Everything was different back then. Sweet. Free.
Now, that corner had a mint-green kiosk with a handwritten menu. Emily bought a cinnamon latte—her first ever. Used to hate the stuff. Took a sip and felt her tongue burn, then something flicker inside, like a light cautiously turned on.
She wandered through the streets, watching an old woman tear bread for pigeons as if dispensing pieces of her soul, a teenager laughing as he flopped into the snow, a woman in a scarf adjusting a pram. It all felt like a play she’d finally stopped performing in. And in just *observing*, there was something unfamiliar—not pain, not joy, but warmth. Like being allowed to feel again.
By two o’clock, Emily walked into a hairdresser’s. No appointment. Just because.
“What’ll it be?” asked the stylist.
“A chop. Bold. Make my mum panic.”
“Say no more,” the woman smirked, reaching for the scissors.
Locks fell like the past—each one a memory, a grudge, a stifled scream. When she stepped out with her new, sharp, cheeky cut, she felt lighter. Like someone had finally vacated the space inside her ribs.
She bought a sausage roll, ate it right on the pavement. Popped into a bookshop and picked the most impractical thing she could find—*Lectures on Metaphysics*. Just to prove she *could*. Choose. Be odd. Be *her*. Suddenly, she laughed. Properly. For no reason. Tears sprang out, and passersby glanced over. She didn’t care. Because for once, it was *her*—laughing, alive.
That evening, she came home. Mum stood by the window in the same jumper she wore for Sunday roasts.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Just walking.”
“You’re alive?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank God,” Mum sighed, sliding the pot onto the hob.
They ate in silence. Only spoons clinking. The candle on the sill flickered.
“I’m quitting tomorrow,” Emily said. “Signing up for a course. Dunno which yet.”
“Just don’t go quiet,” Mum replied. “Quiet’s like mould. Eats away at everything.”
Emily nodded. Because on that Monday, in a city half-drowned in sleet and weary faces, she’d felt it for the first time in years—not needed, not dutiful, not *correct*. Just *herself*. And nothing else mattered.
