Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 123

This week's photo was posted by a friend, Victoria Goldman on twitter. It was taken in a Sainsbury's car park in North London. She thought it told a story. And I thought, well yes, it just might and other's might think so too! 

I ummed and arhhed over this story, not sure if it was up to muster, but I liked it. It's a story of hope. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Mr Bow Tie

Hugo had had enough! He wasn’t going to wear them anymore. He threw the bow tie down and drove off, instantly regretting it but too stubborn to go back. He could picture it in his mind’s eye, lying there on the ground, broken and discarded, just like him.

All the way through school he’d tolerated the gibes, the put-downs, and the ridicule. He’d even been ruffed up a few times, but he had refused to give in. He loved his bow ties and would wear them proudly. But now, tonight, this had been the last straw.

Dating was hard enough for him; his name, his clammy palms, his ruddy complexion and chubby face always working against him. The amount of times they had giggled upon first meeting when they had spotted his bow tie, thinking he had been joking when he told them about his collection. He’d rarely had a second date, until Sandra.

He’d thought she was different, far more accepting, far more gentle, far better suited to him. But then it had happened.

A friend of hers had come in to the same restaurant they had chosen for their third date. She’d come over to talk. Sandra had introduced her friend, and there’d been a smirk upon hearing his name, and then the comment had come: “A bow tie’s a bit formal, isn’t it? You planning to go to the opera later?”

And then a snigger, which Sandra had joined in with, informing her friend that he collected them. And the way she had said it to her friend, a look in her eyes, almost rolling them, as though she was enduring something painful.

Hugo had sat there silently, planted a smile on his face and pretended like it was nothing. He’d waited for the friend to go, which she eventually did, hoping Sandra would make some kind of comment to dismiss her friend’s attitude, but she hadn’t. If anything she’d become more awkward, more quiet, as though she was embarrassed now that it had been highlighted.

Hugo had done his best to continue, be polite, jolly, and tried to keep it light. She had pretended to respond, but he knew it was a pretense; they both knew. Then after dinner she’d left hurriedly under the guise of an early appointment the following day.

And then the text had arrived as he’d walked to his car. “It’s not working for me. I think you’d be better suited to someone else.” And that was that.

He’d thumped his hand on the roof and shouted, startling two people on their way to their car. He’d ripped the bow tie off and chucking it away from him. But now in his car, with his soothing music on, he felt foolish.  It wasn’t the bow tie’s fault. He’d go back in the morning and see if it was still there. It was one his special ones; he’d last worn it to a prom concert.

And that’s when he knew he had been looking in the wrong place. If he wanted to find a lady of refined taste who didn’t sneer at genteel men like him, he needed to go to more exclusive places, and maybe even try and see if he could find more exclusive dating apps. He’d find someone who didn’t jeer at people like him. He knew they were out there somewhere.