Words Val Ormrod
The crash woke Harriet in the early hours.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she surveyed her husband lying on the floor, still clutching a half-empty bottle of whiskey.
Drunk again. Amazing he could still manage to …
She nudged him with her foot and he slumped further. Chinks of light from the street poked through the blinds – enough for her to notice his face was drawn down one side, twisted into an unnatural grimace. Dropping to her knees
she felt for a pulse at the side of his neck. It was still there.
She glanced over to her phone, blank and silent on the bedside table. She should call for an ambulance straight away.
Pausing, she considered other options. Ask the audience?
She could invite all his mistresses and conduct a poll,
she supposed. Very tiresome, not to mention humiliating.
Try 50:50? Like the odds of their marriage surviving.
What if the odds went against her?
Who wants to be a millionaire? I do, Harriet thought, smiling to herself as she recalled the size of his investment portfolio.
I’ll phone a friend, she decided. It’s good to talk.
Val Ormrod
With an extensive body of published work spanning award-winning short stories, poetry, flash fiction and non-fiction, Val Ormrod’s writing has earned widespread recognition. Her 2020 memoir, In My Father’s Memory, reflecting on caring for her father through dementia, was adapted for the stage as My Favourite Dog and performed at theatres in Gloucester and South Wales. More recently, under the pen name Katie Oates, she has published a collection of horse and pony stories. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and regularly runs workshops for adults and young people.
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