Balancing the Book: A Short Story

By Alexandria Blaelock

Would you help a stranger?

It's a normal day. A hot Summer's day. In a cold, airconditioned train. In an almost empty carriage.

Ms Jones is irritable and exhausted.

After a long day of hospital scans, she just wants a bit of peace and quiet.

But the journal she finds, leaves her uneasy.

Because what she does with it might make a big difference in the writer's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BlueMere Books
• Release date: Jul 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781925749311

Alexandria Blaelock

Alexandria Blaelock writes stories, some of them for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. She's also written four self-help books applying business techniques to personal matters like getting dressed, cleaning house, and feeding your friends. As a recovering Project Manager, she’s probably too fond of sticking to plan. She lives in a forest because she enjoys birdsong, the scent of gum leaves and the sun on her face. When not telecommuting to parallel universes from her Melbourne based imagination, she watches K-dramas, talks to animals, and drinks Campari. At the same time. Discover more at www.alexandriablaelock.com.

Book preview

BALANCING THE BOOK

I was tired.

Wait.

Scrub that, I was exhausted.

It’d been a long tiring day at hospital, and I was way past ready to go home.

I wanted a long hot shower with a sandalwood body scrub to wash away the smell, and a long lie down.

And several large alcoholic beverages.

Not necessarily in that order.

I shouldn’t complain.

I’m in remission, and the annual scans ensure I stay that way.

But, with all the requisite waiting, a ten-minute session in the machine ends up taking a day of your life.

And a month’s worth of mobile data as you try to entertain yourself.

The least they could do to make it more bearable would be let you hook into their Wi-Fi network for free.

As if!

Howls of cynical laughter.

And all the while you’re freezing your box off in a thin, backless paper robe, breathing dead oxygen-less air in a featureless institutional grey room that’s