Made up lives day 1: Marie

For anyone stumbling upon this and thinking I've gone bonkers writing about some random woman, let me just remind you that this post is the first of five I intend to write every day this week where, as a creative writing exercise, I select some random person who walks past me and then write a made up backstory about them based purely on my gut reaction from looking at them. What's written below is transcribed word for word from my notebook, and is based on a lady I saw walking past Starbucks in Westfield today.

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Physical descripion:

• Height: 5 foot 5" or thereabouts

• Dark hair cut in a bob style

• Olive complexion

• Wearing a dark winter coat

• Average build

• She has a warm smile on her face

Marie has come to Westfield for the first time with her friend Anna. Both have taken the day off work, timed so as to avoid the crush of the sales.

They have travelled in from nearby Ealing where Marie lives with her husband of two years. The couple have no children, something that Marie is happy to maintain despite her husband's desire for a family. She has not told him of this fact in the hope that he will eventually give up on the idea. In the meantime she continues to secretly take the pill.

Despite not having bought anything, Marie is enjoying her day out. She wishes every day could be like this, and is in fact dreading going back to her job tomorrow. She works as a receptionist at a small solicitor's office, but finds the work dull and uninteresting. She frequently doodles on her legal pads while taking the minutes during meetings, a small indication of her long-held but never acted upon desire to enroll in an art class. Every year she promises herself that she will do it, and every year she fails to go through with it.

Some days she resigns herself to the fact that her life will never rise above suburban mediocrity, but for the most part she is content.