The Void

You’ve got to do something, mum. Volunteer. Take up a hobby [This was after dad died]. Quilting, for instance, or drawing. You used to draw as a kid.

Everyone draws as a kid.

Just trying to be helpful, mum. Mongolian throat singing, foraging. Anything. Otherwise you’ll face the void.

What void?

You don’t want to know.

A few years later she discovers it.

How’s it going, mum? I ask on a moribund Monday.

Awful. Nothing to do and all day to do it in.

That’s it, I say, the ,,,,

Don’t say it, she says.

So I ,,,,

I‘ve never posted this but seeing it was chosen as one of the top ten Drabbles of 2020 I thought I would