Finding Yourself on a Monday
That Monday, Emily woke up earlier than usual. Not to an alarm, not to any noise—she simply opened her eyes. As if some inner engine, the one that had propelled her out of bed on schedule for the past three years, had finally cut out. The clock read 6:42. Outside, sleet fell thick and grey, clinging stubbornly to the window as if determined to seep inside. The air in the flat was heavy, unfamiliar. Something about the morning felt wrong from the start.
She lay there, listening to the old radiator groan. The sound was uneven, almost a whimper, like something scraping inside. Probably low pressure again. Or maybe just the cold of the house—or maybe the cold inside her. No one could measure where the fault truly lay.
The kitchen was unchanged: a white mug with a crack, the fridge adorned with magnets from cities she’d never visited, a stale loaf on the cutting board. Her hand moved automatically toward the drawer where she kept the cat’s treats. But the cat was gone. Had been for a year. Still, her fingers remembered. Memory didn’t let go.
Emily worked at a copy shop attached to a print firm on the outskirts of Manchester. Six years now. The place smelled of paper, toner, vending-machine coffee, and someone’s endless exhaustion. Every day was a carbon copy of the last—the same faces, the same tired conversations, the same hollow routine. Her colleagues were predictable: David with his endless wife jokes, Sarah, who narrated her love dramas on speakerphone even in the loo, and old Barry, the printer, whose life had ended when his Labrador died. And she—she wasn’t a person anymore, just a function in a machine that had no room for feelings or outbursts.
She caught her reflection in the mirror. A face without distinction. Not old, not exhausted. Just… not hers. And the thought flickered: *What’s the point?* Then, nothing. Because there was no answer. Hadn’t been for a long time.
She didn’t go to work. Just didn’t leave. Sat on the bus and watched her office drift past like a stage set. She was an audience member now, too tired even to clap. Instead, she rode to another part of town, where she and Lucy had once drunk carton juice and kissed boys they’d long forgotten. Back then, everything had been different. Sweet. Free.
Now, a mint-green kiosk stood on that corner, its menu scrawled by hand. Emily bought a cinnamon latte—her first ever. She’d always hated cinnamon. The first sip burned her tongue, but inside, it was like someone had flicked on a light.
She wandered through the streets, watching an old woman crumble bread for pigeons as if dividing her own soul. A teenager laughing as he tumbled into the snow. A woman in a scarf adjusting a pram. It all felt like a play, and for once, she wasn’t acting—just watching. And in that stillness, there was something strange: not pain, not joy, just warmth. Like being allowed to feel again.
By two o’clock, she walked into a hairdresser’s. No appointment.
“What are we doing?” asked the stylist.
“A chop. Something sharp. I want my mum to panic.”
“Got it,” the woman smirked, reaching for the scissors.
Hair fell like the past—each strand a memory, a grudge, a stifled scream. When she stepped out with a short, bold cut, she felt lighter. Like she’d finally shed someone who’d been weighing her down for years.
She bought a pasty, ate it standing on the pavement. Strolled into a bookshop and picked the most impractical thing she could find—*Lectures on Metaphysics*—just to prove she could. Choose. Be odd. Be herself. Then she laughed—really laughed. Tears sprang up, and passersby turned, but she didn’t care. For the first time in ages, it was her—real, alive.
That evening, she came home. Her mother stood by the window in the same jumper she wore for Sunday roasts.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Just walking.”
“You’re alive?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank God,” her mother said, turning back to the hob.
They ate in silence. Only the clink of cutlery. Candlelight flickered on the windowsill.
“I’m quitting tomorrow,” Emily said. “And I’m signing up for a course. Don’t know which yet.”
“Just don’t go quiet,” her mother replied. “Quiet’s like mould. It ruins everything.”
Emily nodded. Because on that Monday, in a city full of sleet and tired faces, she’d felt something she hadn’t in years—not needed, not dutiful, not *correct*. Just herself. And nothing else mattered.
