The lines on the digital clock morphed into 00:01 and it was today again. She rolled over and and tried to get back to sleep but the drip-drip-drip continued to remind her of her promise to fix the tap tomorrow.

The digit flicked to 00:09 and she realised that sleep was out of reach for today so she jammed on her scruffy trainers and pulled her oversized cardigan over her goose-pimpled arms. She peeped through the curtains and the sky was still dark. It seemed like daytime was still a distant dream of tomorrow. Her feet shuffled towards the door and she grasped the door handle. Nothing. She realised her pile of mess had been shoved against the door and the door couldn't move. Mentally, she scrawled 'tidy room' on her to do list and kicked her books out of the way.

The landing was eerily quiet and she found herself holding her breath, waiting. Then she heard the deep exhalation of her housemate next door and she released her breath in time. Carefully skipping the squeaky steps and dodging the shafts of moonlight from the window, she finally made it to the front door. The chain rattled noisily as she slipped it off the safety latch and within seconds she was surrounded in starlight and midnight blue and whispering tree leaves.

Pacing the glittering pavement, she slide open her phone and scanned her contact list. Who would be awake at this hour? She clicked down, down, down. Highlighting briefly faceless names one by one. A, B, C...she skipped each one with a frown. No one she could wake up, no one who would appreciate her welcoming them into today. And she realised that although she had started her 'today', everyone else was still in yesterday. She felt buoyant. She was one step ahead of the rest. She had this glimpse into what today would bring her before everyone else. She needed to get someone else to enjoy it with her. Opening her phone up again excitedly, she knew exactly who to call. She jabbed 'call' confidently and held it to her ear.

The ring seemed to echo every direction, invading the night, breaking the peace and she guiltily slid shut the phone. She silently apologised to the lamp posts, the sleeping cars, the dandelions nodding at her ankles and carried on walking. One foot in front of the other, she started to grow bored and her brain read through everything she was meant to do tomorrow. She knew it off by heart, she'd scanned it that many times. The list grew longer by the day, always something to do tomorrow.

She needed to call her dentist, she needed to get her car MOT'd, she needed to visit her sister's new baby...well, not so new anymore..., she needed to sign up for the gym and of course that tap. She wasn't worried though. There's always tomorrow.

And as she counted the tasks on her fingers, she skipped off the high pavement edge into the road. Timed perfectly, another person enjoying today, rounded the corner in his 4x4. As they met, both their minds were thinking about tomorrow. For that split-second, they were both simultaneously isolated in their own futures, one step in front of everyone else.

For her, today only lasted a few minutes. For her, tomorrow will always be tomorrow. For her, tomorrow never comes.




My attempt at fiction!! I don't normally do fiction...as you can probably tell! I know serious writers of fiction are very careful to plan and structure their stories before writing them but I just wrote what came to me so it probably doesn't read well! I thought I'd give it a go anyway :) This theme came to me the other night so...there we go!

Oh yeah, moral of the story - don't leave things to tomorrow. If it's worth doing, do it now! It might not end as dramatically as it did for "Her" but you never know if the moment might pass and you wish you told that person how you felt, you wish you sorted things out with an old friend, you wish you helped your mum move that shelf like you promised.