Everyday Tom gets up from his cold dusty bed imagining she is still with him. His tall fragile body weeps with pain as his arthritis kicks in. His gauging ghostly features appear upon the mirror his deep-set eyes, his chalked cheeks and his ratty nose. But yet he remembers the good old days when people greeted you with love and friendship not deceit and charisma like they do now.

        He pulls on his rugged fifthly clothes and walks through the hallway filled with his sentimental war memorably. He goes into his rustic kitchen and makes himself some toast with full fat butter spread all over it.

        He turns on his ancient wireless and sits on his rugged old armchair that his father gave to him. He picks up the daily paper and skips to the back page to check the horse racing odds. He watches the wireless until lunch then he gets up and cooks himself an omelette filled with crispy bacon and some mouth-watering cheddar cheese. After lunch he picks up his old anorak and his wooden walking stick, he then goes outside and waits for the bus in the remote dismal corner in front of his house. He gets the bus into town and goes to the bookies to place a bet on the 4th horse of the 8th race. Everyday he follows the same pattern and has never won a penny for the last twenty years but today seemed different.

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        The sky was grey as normal and the wind was still blowing against the overgrown trees but he could hear laughter, there were three kids playing hop-scotch in the alley by the road, Tom hadn’t heard laughter for so long he had almost forgotten it ever existed. He and his wife always use to laugh, they would stare into each other’s eyes and burst out laughing for no apparent reason, but she was gone taken from him without even a kiss goodbye. She had gone to work normal and she was on her way home in the car she had ...

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