**Finding Myself on a Monday**
That Monday, Emily woke up earlier than usual. Not because of the alarm, not because of any noise—she just opened her eyes. It was as if some inner mechanism, the one that had dragged her out of bed on schedule for the last three years, had finally stalled. The clock read 6:42. Outside, sleet fell in thick, gray sheets, clinging to everything like it meant to seep through the cracks. The air in the flat was heavy, unfamiliar. Something about the morning already felt wrong.
She lay there listening to the old radiator groan. The sound was uneven, almost wheezing, like something scratching from inside. Probably low pressure again. Or maybe the house was just cold. Or maybe *she* was cold—no one could tell where the real malfunction was.
In the kitchen, everything stood as always: the white mug with the crack, the fridge covered in magnets from cities she’d never visited, the stale loaf on the chopping board. Her hand reached for the drawer where the cat food used to be. But there was no cat. Hadn’t been for a year. Still, her hand moved on its own. Memory wouldn’t let go.
Emily worked at a print shop in a business park on the edge of Nottingham. Six years now. It smelled of paper, toner, vending-machine coffee, and someone’s eternal exhaustion. Every day was a carbon copy of the last. Same faces, same tired conversations, same hollow purpose. Her coworkers were predictable: Ben with his endless wife jokes, Jessica who loudly dissected her love life even in the loo, and old Pete, the printer who’d checked out when his terrier died. And her—less a person now than a function, a cog in a machine that had no room for feelings or breakdowns.
She caught her reflection in the mirror. A face without distinction. Not old, not tired. Just… *someone else’s*. The thought came unbidden: *What’s the point?* And then—nothing. Because there was no answer. Hadn’t been for ages.
She didn’t go to work. Just never left. Sat on the bus watching her office slide past like a stage set while she played spectator, too tired even to applaud. Rode all the way to the other side of town, where she and Charlotte had once sipped juice from cartons and kissed boys whose names she’d long forgotten. Back when everything tasted sweeter. Freer.
Now a mint-green kiosk stood on that corner, its menu scrawled in chalk. Emily bought a cinnamon latte—her first ever. Used to hate the stuff. Took a sip and felt her tongue burn, then a slow warmth, like someone had flicked a light on inside her.
She wandered through backstreets, watching an old woman tear bread for pigeons as if parting with her own soul. A teenager laughing as he flopped into the slush. A scarf-wrapped mum adjusting a pram. Like a play unfolding, only now she’d stopped acting and simply *watched*. And in that watching was a strange sensation—not joy, not sorrow, just something warm and human. Permission to *feel* again.
By two, she walked into a barber’s on a whim. No appointment.
“What’ll it be?” asked the stylist.
“A chop. Something sharp. I want my mum to gasp.”
The woman smirked, scissors flashing. Locks hit the floor like shed years—each a memory, a grudge, a swallowed shout. When she stepped out with her new, daring crop, she felt lighter. As if someone had finally left the room after sitting too long on her chest.
Bought a cheese pasty from a stand, ate it right there on the pavement. Popped into a bookshop and grabbed the most pointless title she could find: *Lectures on Metaphysics*. Just to prove she *could*. Choose. Be odd. Be *herself*. Suddenly, she laughed. Properly. For no reason. Tears spilled; passersby stared. She didn’t care. Because for once, it was *her* laughing. Alive.
That evening, her mum stood by the window in the same jumper she wore for Sunday roasts.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Just walking.”
“You’re alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Her mum turned back to the stove.
They ate in silence, forks clinking. Candlelight trembled on the sill.
“I’m quitting tomorrow,” Emily said. “Signing up for… something. Dunno what yet.”
Her mum nodded. “Long as you don’t go quiet again. Silence is like mould—eats away at everything.”
Emily knew she was right. Because on that Monday, in a town choked with sleet and weary faces, she’d felt something she’d forgotten: herself. Not needed, not dutiful, not *correct*. Just *her*. And nothing else mattered.
(*Lesson learned: Sometimes you’ve got to lose the script before you remember your own lines.*)
