Unavoidable Fates by Alexandria Blaelock

Author:Alexandria Blaelock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fate, destiny, myths, parallel universe
Publisher: BlueMere Books
Published: 2021-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHARGING INTO FATE

“Last bookshop 1,000 km.” Marguerite read the sign aloud as it flashed past.

“That’s funny isn’t it? That should really read last servo.”

“Hmmm?” said Steve.

“Last bookshop.”

“Yeah, right,” he mustered up a chuckle though she could see his mind wasn’t really on it.

She sighed and looked out the window again.

Miles and miles of flat, black, bushfire scarred land; scrub bushes regrowing low on the ground with the odd burnt out tree trunk standing like a dark statue from a long-ago civilisation.

As they flashed past another trunk, she thought it looked like a man fallen to his knees with his hands thrown up.

She whispered, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,” out the window, quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Not spoken out loud, because she knew Steve was not a big fan of poetry.

He thought she was being uppity, flaunting her middle-class upbringing before him. Showing off.

She watched Ozymandias recede into the distance with the side mirror and corrected herself.

Miles and miles and miles of burnt-out bush.

It made her heart ache, though she couldn’t say what for.

The creatures that once lived there?

The extent of the devastation?

Or that it reminded her of her own life.

Trashed and burned, an empty wasteland of neglected and forgotten dreams. And she was fairly sure it was all because of Steve.

Well, not all Steve, obviously she had a hand in it too.

But somewhere along the line, she’d forgotten who she was.

And a crap tonne of show-offy poetry.

She knew Steve was planning to dump her. And given he’d blown through all her savings; it was only a matter of time.

Weeks if not days.

He probably had a new mark, primed and ready to go.

She knew exactly how it would happen.

One day he’d just move in with the next girl and disappear, leaving her to deal with the fallout; probably superannuation funds stripped bare, loans and credit cards she didn’t know she’d taken out, and overly aggressive debt collectors.

But that was okay.

The day after that, she’d start picking up the pieces, and she’d be glad.

Marguerite vowed she would never allow herself to blindly trust someone like that again.

Weird though that he wanted one last holiday. A trip along the Coral Coast; Perth, Geraldton, Shark Bay, Carnarvon, Exmouth.

Staying at the Cape Range National Park, to look at the gorges and the reef, and then coming home

Aside from being with Steve 24/7, she was having a good time.

Idly she wondered what the last bookshop would be like.

She imagined something like an old wood cabin, half falling down, the boards scoured clean of paint by the strong coastal winds.

Perhaps there was a single petrol bowser out the front, one of those old manual ones that had dinged as the thingy turned in a globe so you could see and hear the petrol pumping.

And they’d have a café, half full of junk with a table or two, selling dry, old pies a week or two old.

More likely it would be someone’s idea of a joke - no one read books any more.

They’d do better selling handicrafts. Allegedly made by natives like they did in America.

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