Can't believe it's more than a year since I posted anything...here goes!

FOR THE LOVE OF THE PEOPLE

There was once nothing at all extraordinary about this fifty year old woman. Nothing about the way she looked, or the way she spoke, when she was a teenager living near a rubbish tip would have marked her for greatness.

That is, until she met her benefactor, a man who wore real leather jackets, beautiful shoes and snapped his fingers at servants, circulating easily and comfortably among the poor in the slums as easily as he did in the boardrooms of the rich.

When she first met him in the hotel bar, she was still a teenager with an elastic band holding her pony tail. Shy and quiet, with nothing but a tremulous smile and an eagerness to escape her mundane life. She was about to leave the bar when he touched her arm and said:

‘What’s your emergency?’

By the time she left him, there were diamonds in her hair as well as on her fingers. Under his tutelage her handwriting improved, her nose succumbed to an elegant reshaping and her body was toned. Speech and elocution lessons and a makeup expert connected the dots between ordinary and stunning.

Now her chihuahua’s paw gently brushed her thigh when he wanted to climb down, to eat his specially prepared foie gras from his gold plate.

‘Are you hungwy, my little pet? Here, mummy feed you.’

She picked up the gold spoon. As far as she knew, no-one had ever trained a dog to be spoon-fed. What an achievement, perhaps she could apply for the Guiness Book of Records?

‘Now, darling. You need to have your shampoo.’ She clicked her fingers and a servant magically appeared. That was usually all he needed, and placed the dog in his arms. He nodded  walking away with the precious bundle.

She sat, sipping her tea and looking out at the ocean. It was particularly beautiful today – blue and placid and close yet so far away. The sea was a gift – it could change your mood in an instant. Staring into the distance, it calmed you, made you think of nothing but its blue depths.

She lay back on the chaise longue and closed her eyes. Stillness, quiet, only the scent of the peonies so recently plucked from the garden and the tinkle of bells from the vendors in the street.

It wouldn’t be very long now until they came for her, those people in the street, those who had accepted her largesse so gratefully and easily, who had loved her, hadn’t they? Wasn’t it she who had thrown banknotes from the limousine, who’d visited the poor in their ghettos, who’d donated an hour of her time once a month in the soup kitchen, who’d spoken to them so gently from the television when they were angry about something. Just like a mother, really.

And what could you do to your mother? You had to respect her and love her, didn’t you?

You couldn’t possibly do her any harm, could you?