Writing for Fun
January 2020
Seven Deadly Sins - Pete Norman
I want to tell you about my best friend – my very best friend – Colin.
Colin has a lust for life and he lives it to the full. There is nothing he cannot lend his hand to in the world of adventure. Together we manage the E.S.A. – The Extreme Sports Association – and, needless to say, he excels at everything he does and I live in his shadow . . . but that is not an unpleasant place to be and I do not envy him his superb prowess. In fact I am proud to number him amongst my friends.
I am married to his twin sister and I have never been happier . . .
. . . but I am getting ahead of myself, perhaps first I should explain where it all began.
I am an obsessive thrill seeker and I am a glutton for punishment – from the time I was in the Boy Scouts and scrambled up my first climbing wall, abseiled down my first cliff and trashed my first mountain bike I have been passionate about extreme sports. For many years I have travelled the world searching for adventure: I have survived the deadly white waters of the Colorado, I have dived in the deepest cenotes, climbed some of the most dangerous cliff walls and scaled some of the highest mountains – although I have never once entered the ‘dead zone’ on Mount Everest – that is simply one thrill too far for me. However, for all my achievements, the most dangerous sport of all eluded me for many years – and I am talking about true love.
The problem with my life was that I spent my days either in exhilarating isolation, or else in the company of disparate groups of fellow thrill seekers, very few of whom were of the fair sex and so at the end of each trip, when the excitement was over, I always went home to my small flat alone.
I was never one to make close friends and travelling the world with a succession of casual acquaintances eventually began to lose its sparkle. More and more often I turned down opportunities and more and more often I stayed, sloth like, in the claustrophobic confines of my flat watching endless boxed sets and playing mindless games on the computer long into the night.
It took an extraordinary girl to drag me kicking and screaming back to the real world again and I owe her absolutely everything.
For some time I did not know her name – she was just the attractive blond haired girl who had moved into the flat below. For some time our paths never crossed – her movements never seemed to coincide with mine – but I soon realised that she always went out at the same time each morning, looking delightful in Lycra and always came back half an hour later looking somewhat less pristine.
Strangely enough, given my love of extreme sports, I had never been a jogger – the lure of sweating my way around some muddy field, day after day, knackering my knees, had never really appealed – but this seemed a God given opportunity to finally introduce myself to this enigmatic girl.
It was on a Sunday morning that I slipped on a brand new and quite fetching blue track suit and orange Nike trainers and walked halfway down the stairs, where I sat, just out of sight and waited. By some perverse coincidence she was uncharacteristically late but she did finally emerge and I found myself trotting down the stairs past her door at precisely the same time.
I commented on the peculiar ‘happen-stance’ and asked whether she would mind if I joined her on her morning constitutional.
She gave me a lop-sided smile and said that she would enjoy the company and in less than five minutes we were jogging – at a fair pace – around the local park and, were it not for my excellent physical condition, I would have struggled to keep up with her. She was very fit. She looked even more lovely at close quarters and I was in seventh heaven. However, she was not one for casual conversation and I learned very little from her that day except that her name was Carol but I was more than content with the pleasure of her physical presence and the prospect that this exercise routine together might become a regular event and, hopefully, develop into something more tangible.
From that moment on I made sure that we met up on a daily basis and very soon I was enjoying the strenuous workout far more than I had ever expected to. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months but the pattern never changed – it was difficult to chat while running at speed and on our arrival back home her only thoughts were of a hot shower – alone – so we went our different ways.
We were going nowhere, fast.
Then, one Sunday morning, she broke the devastating news – she told me that she would not see me for a few days as she had to go away. I was struck dumb and I never found the courage to ask her where she was going. Time passed in a blur. I took up a daily vigil at the window looking out for her return; I stopped playing music in my flat as I might not otherwise hear her return to hers; I made a conscious effort to listen out for her at the time she habitually left for her run but it was four days before my efforts were finally rewarded.
It was early afternoon, just after lunch, when I saw a red Hyundai drive into the car park. It was not a car I recognised but I dutifully watched as it slipped into a parking space against the far wall and the door opened and the driver climbed out.
She was just as beautiful as ever, except that today she was dressed somewhat more girly and she looked stunning in a flouncy blue dress. My heart was pounding, the wrath that had consumed me at her desertion quickly turned to greed: I needed her; I wanted her; I ran to the door and took the stairs two at a time. Breathless I hit the entrance just as she opened the door. She stared at me as if devoid of recognition, as if startled at this strange man suddenly bursting into the lobby. I stopped dead in my tracks as she regarded me with suspicion while she held the door open. Then, to my total disbelief, she entered the door again. I found myself confronted by two of her, side by side and I might have thought that I was dreaming if it were not for the doppelgänger’s face breaking into a lop-sided smile. ‘I see you’ve already met Catherine, my twin sister . . .’
I nodded helplessly as she struggled through the door – I could see that she was in some discomfort but that she was putting on a brave face.
‘Are you all right, Carol?’ I asked.
Again the lop-sided smile burst across her face but this time it was tinged with sorrow. ‘Yes, I’m just fine, thank you . . . but now that I’ve had the operation I’m afraid you will have to call me Colin.’