Plain old ordinary Green

4

This Ep might slot in before Ep 3 , all that is to be worked out in the future. Start here if you want to read from Ep 1.

Librarian Louisa Greene has lived a quiet life among the muted bookstacks of her working days. Now she is retired she wonders what to do with all the thoughts she never spoke into her quiet world. In this gently satirical, flash fiction novella, the character LG, a single childless woman of a certain age, finds the courage to share with you the reader, all the things she thought, but never dared say. She hopes it might encourage you to do the same.

4.

Louisa Greene never liked her given name. It was in fact not Louisa, but Lois, not Greene, with an e but boring Green. How any two parents could name their child Lois she could never understand. Even if they were Methodists at the time (they subsequently lapsed) and its meaning in the New Testament was superior and beautiful, she knew she would never forgive them.

Lois Lane was the only other Lois she ever admired but then her name has the lovely alliteration of l’s rolling off the tongue. Lois Green just didn’t have the same ring and she knew one day she would change it. Not dramatically and ostentatiously as some would — to Bambi or Mimi — but perhaps an addition of vowels would be enough to bring it up a notch. That’s how Lois became Louisa and plain old ordinary Green (which conjured up the bland colour of a dunny door) was transformed into the more literary Greene. For wasn’t that the world she longed to be part of — after all these years of living an outwardly bland and ordinary life, wasn’t it time to tell her story?

And thus began the process of changing her name by deed poll, so that from the day she retired every new person she met would know her only as Louisa Greene. She also let her old friends know by sending them a formal announcement in the post and those who thought she was was just being silly or couldn’t bring themselves to make the change, she promptly dropped.

It sorted out the chaff from the wheat so to speak Louisa observed and she had to admit she wasn’t sorry to see some of them go. In fact the process was so satisfying she added some other criteria for dropping them as well.

Such as…

Anyone who when she was having a bad trot, called her a poor thing. Gone.

Any female friend who had to retell in minute detail everything that had happened to them in the last 24, 48, 72, and so on hours, and at the end of the conversation when it was time to go, would say as an afterthought— and how are you? Gone.

Any male friend who still wanted to mansplain how knowledgeable they were about all things that bizz and buzz in the universe. Who wants to let her know ad nauseum that his new plan/idea/proposal/ product/ is the best, simply the best, and has never been done before. Gone.

Any friend who stood too close, who insinuated their way uninvited into her affairs. Gone.

Any friend, male or female, who after not seeing her for a while, instead of remarking you’re looking great! (even if you’re not), enquires tentatively: are you well? (Is she really looking that bad?) Gone.

As you can imagine at the end of this cull, there weren’t many friends left…

not many at all…

So be it, Louisa Greene muttered to herself as she put away the tea things and tidied the bureau, shoving a few too many things a bit too forcefully into the miscellaneous drawer.

So be it!

After all, time was running out and if she didn’t take a stand now for the real Louisa Greene, whenever the hell would she?

© Jan Cornall 2024.

PS. Love to know if you or your characters have any such criteria to add to the list!

Doorway to the real Louisa G? Photo by Effe Kurnaz, Unsplash.