A Short Story

I wrote this short story, Alice, in 2011. I should say at once that Alice is not the real name of the lady in question.

The story is based loosely on a real-life relationship I had, though there are quite a few differences between the story and what really happened. To take just one example, in reality the carp didn’t come back to the pond, even though Alice’s father and I did our very best to clear the pond of weed!

I had and still have a great deal of affection for the house in France where this story took place. Alice’s family no longer own the house, which in some ways makes this story all the more poignant to me.

I hope you like the story. I wrote it during a time when I still felt a great deal of pain about the end of the Alice relationship. I am surprised at how much distance and calmness on the situation I seem to convey in the story, even though I did not feel that distance and calmness at all when I wrote it!

I’m glad to say that I no longer feel the emotions that I detail in the story. I’m also glad to say that I am nowadays good friends with ‘Alice’ and her husband, so this story has had a happy ending!

Click here for the story in PDF format.