disenchanted virgin (haibun)

MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

Oh dear, she thought. Mother had to arrange this outing, now didn’t she? She looked at her second cousin, Emile Candiac in the photo with her blushing and pretending to be shy.  If only they knew she was turning red from rage.

I wish she would devote more of her time making Father happy, instead she finds it is her duty to make me miserable.  Well, I’ll hand to her, she has succeeded.

Can you imagine, how embarrassing this will be for me if word gets out at the sanatorium that I was escorted by Emile Candiac!  All of my colleagues had refused courtships by him. He’s the laughing stock of our neighbourhood, let alone le Sanatorium Alphone Genest.   Now I will be the joke of the town!  Me! a second year resident nurse! They will all think I am so pathetic that my mother runs my social life as well as my personal life! Jesus, Mary, Joseph, what next?  Will she order me to go to the New Year`s Eve ball with him as well?  I must feign illness. I must!!

Mother thinks that at the age of twenty, I will be an old spinster if I am not wed. I don’t want to be tied down like she was so young. Is it my fault she was without a grain of intelligence or logic marrying Father at fifteen years old, a man thirty years her senior!  Emile Candia is twenty years older than me and I am not interested in being courted or even considered for marriage with such dunce!  An old disgusting one at that!

I’ve been saving  from my meagre wages, to travel.  Maybe I could go with some of the girls to the States. We could take the train and head out to Newport, Vermont for a weekend. That would be nice.  I hear their fabric, especially cotton is of higher quality than in Canada and at reasonable costs.

Now how can I get the image of that disgusting photograph out of my mind?

meddling mothers

desperate bachelors

crestfallen maidens

© Tournesol ’15

MLMM Tale Weaver Prompt