Shadows and Charcoal

**Shadows and Coal**

I’ve lived in this city for thirty-five years, and only today did I realise it no longer feels like home. The realisation didn’t come with tears or a heavy sigh—just a cold, detached understanding, as if I’d suddenly noticed an old coat had split at the seams long ago, yet I’d kept wearing it anyway.

Margaret woke at six. The flat was damp, the walls surrendering to the chill, as if they knew the heating had been cut off. In the kitchen, the kettle hissed, steam whistling through its spout. Outside, rows of identical council houses stretched into the grey dawn, shadows in the half-light. A water bill lay on the windowsill, pinned under a postcard from her daughter, sent two years ago. Silence. The kind no telly or shuffling feet could drown out—the kind where every creak in your soul echoes.

She went out to the shop in worn jeans, messy hair tucked under her hood. The pavement gleamed from last night’s rain, the asphalt reflecting the dull sky like a poor imitation of life. The queue at the till was silent, people standing stiff as a stalled train. Ahead of Margaret was a woman with a trolley full of coal bags and milk bottles. Three sacks of coal, four pints of milk. Neatly arranged, as if following some desperate checklist.

“Stocking up for winter?” Margaret asked, just to break the quiet.

The woman turned. Her eyes were vacant, but her voice was firm as concrete: “No. Mum passed. Gotta fix the fireplace. And brew tea. For someone.”

There was no emotion in the words, yet they cut like glass. Margaret nodded—not because she understood, but because there was nothing else to say. What do you reply when coal is for loneliness, and milk is for the hope someone might still come?

She left the shop and didn’t go home. The words echoed: *Brew tea. For someone.* And then it hit her—she hadn’t made tea for anyone in years. Not even herself.

Margaret wandered through the city, every corner achingly familiar: chipped park benches, the chemist’s with its sour-faced staff, the house with a crack in the brickwork like an old scar. Each street, each step, was a scratched record playing the same tune. The people around her felt like strangers, as if the city had swapped their faces when she wasn’t looking, leaving only emptiness. No one from her past remained—just old letters, forgotten numbers, unread texts.

Her daughter was in London. Her ex-husband, gone God knows where. Work was a waste of time. Money wasn’t the issue—it was the silence that gnawed at her. The flat was like an old suitcase: too heavy to carry, too familiar to abandon.

She caught a bus to the station. No plan. No destination. Bought a cardboard-cup tea and a one-way ticket. Picked a town at random, stabbing her finger at the timetable. She needed somewhere life hadn’t frozen solid, where each day wasn’t a rerun but a new scene.

On the train, she watched the world blur past—fields, pylons, the occasional village, like clips from an old film. Tears ran down her cheeks. Not from sorrow, but relief, as if someone had lifted an invisible weight she’d carried for years without noticing. They were alive, those tears, washing the dust from her soul. She sent her daughter a voice note: “Gone to live. I’ll explain later.” Her voice shook, but there was light in it, not fear. Her daughter replied: “Mum, you alright? I’m here.” The warmth in those words thawed something frozen long ago.

Margaret rented a room in a hostel. Bare walls, a stack of second-hand books on the desk. The next day, she got a job in a little shop selling candles and postcards. No one asked about her past. Later, she found a tiny flat—wooden floors that creaked like old memories, the scent of morning tea in the air. She started walking. Reading. Listening. Noticing. The way the light changed at dusk. The sound of rain on the roof. The smell before a storm. It wasn’t a return to a place, but to herself.

One day at the market, an old vendor handed her a bag of pears and said, “You’re not from here. But you belong.” It wasn’t a compliment—it was acknowledgement. Margaret smiled. Not politely. Honestly. For the first time in years, she felt she was where she should be. Something clicked inside, like a key turning.

Seven months passed.

She went back to her old city for a day. To collect papers. Donate old things. Say what needed saying. The place greeted her coldly—same puddles, same grey walls, same indifferent noise. The flat smelled of neglect. The furniture stood like tombstones to the past, foreign now. The air was thick, like a room where no one’s opened the windows in years. She took the kettle and a photo of her daughter as a child. Held it a long time. Left the rest. No pain. Just ease, like closing a book she’d read too many times.

At the stairs, a neighbour called out:

“Marg, that you? Where’ve you been? We thought you’d left for good.”

The woman stood with a shopping bag, in an old coat, curiosity in her eyes but no warmth.

Margaret answered softly:

“Learning to breathe.”

The neighbour frowned, ready to ask more, but Margaret was already descending the steps. Lightly. Freely. No keys in her pocket. No looking back.

In her rucksack were milk and a bag of coal. Just in case. A reminder that life can be rebuilt—if you know what you’re rebuilding it for.

**Lesson? Sometimes leaving isn’t running away—it’s coming home to yourself.**

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