Short Story - October 2007

Capturing the Queen                                                      

From about the age of seven, most evenings I watched mum play Patience,
the cards set out on a tray on the arm of her chair. One Christmas a tiny pack
of cards fell out of a cracker and into my lap. At first I only mimicked how mum
played, which she hated. “If you’re going to play, learn to play properly”, she
snapped. With many irritated sighs she taught me. Later when I went to
primary school, I couldn’t believe that the numbers I was being taught to
count, add and subtract, were the same numbers as those on the cards. My
cards represented much more than numbers. Each had a personality. One
was a baby, two was a toddler. I despised the number cards up till the sevens.
I respected eight, welcomed nine and ten. The King in any suit, was my
absent father, mum was the Queen of Spades, my aunties took over the other
queens. Jack in different suits of clothes, I imagined as….me.

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