Tuesday's Tales is back!!

Welcome back to Tuesday's Tales :-)  2012 seemed to pass in a flash and now it seems an age since Christmas :-) As many of you know, several TT participants went on to have their stories published, so i wonder what 2013 will bring on that front.  Quite a challenge :-)

So this is the first week's offering of 2013 but before I begin, I'd like to tell you about
a book I received for Christmas that is all about superstitions. As soon as the paper fell away ideas were buzzing in my head for future projects.  Two are already under way, and this week's prompt is part of the first one.

(The incident included re the tractor and car is true.  In reality the occupants of the car walked absolutely unscathed, other than being thoroughly shaken up.  And in the true version the car driver was driviing like a maniac.)

 So *grin*, here is my first offering for 2013.  Thanks for keeping me company on this year's TT journey.
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This week's prompt is Gift

The gift lay on the passenger seat. Small, oblong, and beautifully wrapped in bright red foil paper with a large red bow on the front. Front, Jim, thought, or top? He shrugged, shifted down a gear when a black cat shot from his left to his right across the road ahead of him, and disappeared into a line of trees on the verge.

Not a person normally prone to superstition, he found himself hoping the black cat prophesied good luck.

A smile tipped the edge of his lips into a curve. Jenny, his Jenny would know the origin of that superstition and whether the cat represented good or bad luck and who believed which version and why. His smile faded.

He was ready to make the commitment, and the more ready he felt, the more Jenny slipped away from him.  And yet, when he thought about it, he couldn’t put his finger on why, or how, he knew this was so.

They'd met at a conference in London nine months ago, clicked immediately, and left together early, uncaring they’d both be missed by their respective employers.

The next day they attended every meeting, only to escape in the evening to be together for as long as possible, before they parted the next morning.  She to return north; and he to travel south west to Cornwall.

Two days later she’d emailed him.

“I’ve been given my notice,” she’d told him. “They cited downsizing, but my superior couldn’t wait to tell me the head of the company turned up for the meeting we skipped and noticed my absence.”

Incensed by the unfairness and riddled with guilt, after all he’d persuaded Jenny to skip that session, he’d searched the papers until he found what he hoped would turn out to be a suitable job.

Three interviews and a month later Jenny had moved in with him; and until a month ago nothing had come between them. To all intents and purpose everything remained the same, but something, something so tenuous Jim couldn’t put his finger on it, was pulling them apart.

Not everyone believes a black cat is lucky. Now where did that thought come from, Jim wondered, scoffing at the thought he could almost hear the voice in his head. Take the Americans and the Germans.

 

A vague memory of a friend’s serious voice going on about his American friend’s unhealthy obsession with the belief black cats were unlucky and wouldn’t go anywhere near one, and refused to allow his children to bring a black cat home from the sanctuary. And what about the Germans?  Why was he even giving these thoughts headroom, Jim wondered, and thumped his hand on the steering wheel as a snazzy white sports car shot past him and vanished round a sharp bend in the road.

Automatically he reduced his speed, unsurprised when he rounded the corner to find the sports car, its roof sheared off, stuck beneath a long trailer being pulled by a farm tractor.

You'll find more Free Tuesday's Tales reads HERE