Character: Pale

The mantelpiece clock ticked as Pale apprehensively waited alone in her living room, 6.20 am, a sunny June morning. Beige curtains closed, lights out and a pine-scented candle glowing in the still darkness. She sat on the settee facing the blank TV, nausea and headache fading, winding a length of her thinning hair around her fingers.    The

radiotherapy failed, she reached up and anxiously touched the hair above her right temple, it was still there. The dull brown hair matched her eyes, forty-seven and no one would notice her parting, she felt so alone, in her home, waiting for death. Photographs of her wedding fixed in dark wooden frames; remembering the day, she smiled to herself, so happy then.