1814. So talented!

Charlotte didn’t have a single humdrum electron whizzing around in her brain. Her brain was on fire!

“You’re so creative, Charlotte,” people would say. “How do you come up with so many creative ideas?”

“I guess it’s a natural gift one is born with,” said Charlotte, and she would return to the painting she was painting, or the music for the Irish harp she was playing, or the sundial she was installing in the garden.

“Everything you touch turns to gold, Charlotte,” people would say. “You definitely have the Midas touch.”

“I don’t do anything to encourage it,” said Charlotte. “Things just come naturally to me,” and she went back to baking her Baked Alaska for she was have important friends over for dinner, or back to the rug she was weaving, or back to the dress for a niece’s doll she was sewing, or back to making homemade candles for a friend’s 30th birthday, or back to the lines she was learning for a dramatic production.

The extolling of Charlotte’s talents among her peers was like a mantra; it repeated itself over and over. “It’s sad you can’t find a job in this small town,” someone said. “Why don’t you move to the big city where your talents would be put to good use?”

So Charlotte moved to the big city in search of a job. What a relief! Quite frankly, Charlotte had driven everyone in the small town nuts.

636. Old Mrs Bradshaw

© Bruce Goodman 8 July 2015

When old Mrs Bradshaw wasn’t knitting she was sewing. How she could sew a button back on a shirt in thirty seconds without hardly looking was anyone’s guess. How she could knit the most complex pattern while watching television was a marvel.

And generous to a fault. She would sew doll’s clothes for every doll in the street. There wasn’t a girl with a doll within a radius of a mile who hadn’t at some stage knocked on old Mrs Bradshaw’s door. And out came the clothes patterns: books and books of fashionable clothes designs. It was a girl to girl thing. Old Mrs Bradshaw would spend hours discussing and suggesting. You’d think the doll was about to walk down the carpet to the Oscars.

Year after year, old Mrs Bradshaw won the quilting section at the annual craft show. No one minded her monopoly on the first prize.

“Yes of course, dear. You buy the wool and I’ll knit you a pullover. What sort of pattern would you like? You get the fabric and I’ll make you a quilt. Yes, yes. Bring your trousers here and I’ll take them up.”

And all for nothing. She never charged.

To think that now she’s dead. Dear old Mrs Bradshaw. Always so generous. Even her pre-planned death notice stated: In lieu of flowers please make a donation to the Salvation Army’s charitable fund. Her funeral was packed.

The Salvation Army got two dollars seventy.

531. Crafty Cecilia

Cecilia was brilliant at crafts. She spent months working on a secret project. It was an effigy of her husband, made of plaster of Paris, and knitting, and sewing, and embroidery, and so on. It was the spitting image of Norman.

The dummy was only from the waist up. But it could wave a hand if Cecilia pushed a button.

The real Norman was an invalid. Every Tuesday Cecilia would take him to the supermarket. He would sit in the car while Cecilia did the shopping. Then every second Thursday, Cecilia took Norman on a drive through the countryside.

The dummy was finished. Cecilia murdered her husband with a bullet through the head. She disposed of the body. Good riddance.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Norman continued to wave happily to the neighbours as Cecilia drove the car down their driveway.