FLASH FICTION: ‘Loneliness’ – By: Tolulope Popoola

Image by Horia Varlan via Flickr

I stared out of my bedroom window, facing the park. I watched a young woman and her toddler playing on the swings. The feeling of loneliness engulfed me again. These days, I’m lucky if I get one visitor a week. The only regular footsteps on my path are those of the postman. But even he doesn’t come in. He only brings me bills from the utility companies.

I long for the days when my life was full and purposeful. The days when I would complain about the noise, the mess, disappearance of money and everything else that came with a house full of teenagers. Now my house is empty. All my children are grown up, married with their own kids. They live too far away to –

My thoughts were interrupted by urgent knocks.

Curious, I shuffled in my slippers towards the front door and opened it.

My first son stood there, with his four young children running round his feet. I noticed the luggage too.

‘Megan left me for her fitness instructor. Can we stay with you?’

Tolulope Popoola is a writer, blogger  and lover of arts and literature. She recently quit her career in Accounting to become a full-time writer. She blogs at http://writingmystories.blogspot.com, and is the creator of the online fiction series, ‘In My Dreams It Was Simpler’. She also writes short stories, poems and magazine articles, and is currently working on a novel.

Tagged as: creative writing, family, fiction, FLASH FICTION, Loneliness