Playing with Plot

This month I have been playing with fiction writing. Thought I'd share a little sample:

Running her finger over the ridges in her thumbnail, she took a deep breath. She smelt warm soil and her own high expectations. The small black tray in front of her had seemed so fragile in the garden centre one day ago but now it had grown in strength; filled with moist earth and the importance of her task.

One by one she gently shook the seeds from the small packet into her left hand and separated them using the creases in her palm as dividers. Six for this tray and six saved in case the first ones failed. She made sure the reserve seeds were safely returned into the paper sleeve with the lip folded over; holding the first six down with her thumb.

Using the wrong end of a pencil, she carefully swirled six deep holes in two neat rows spaced equally across the tray. One seed was dropped into each and covered over with soil and her whispered pleas. The clouds stretched away from the sun, casting a sudden brightness on her garden table as she steadily poured water from her measuring jug. With another deep breath, she welcomed this as a sign of good things ahead.

"Hi love."

Daniel's voice sounded very close, possibly already in the kitchen. Normally his key in the door gave her time to move from her day to their day.

"Hey, I was just tidying some old things out of the shed. How was your day? Did you make your meeting?"

"Good - yes, just!" Daniel crossed the patio to kiss his wife's cheek. "Didn't realise you knew where the shed was," he teased her gently. "Well, Gareth came to the meeting with exactly the arrogance we predicted and he managed to drop into the conversation that he'd been at Georgio's last night with Michael Kennedy. Damn fool."

In one motion she rose, kissed his forehead, slipped the seed packet under his newspaper and placed them both on top of the recycling box that sat on the edge of the patio. Their evening had begun; as sweetly and calmly as they always had. Although tonight she held the quiet potential inside her like a secret.