The Real World | A Walking Dead Story

1.1.1 (8)

Bell Free Primary School (England, Chester)

Claire drives to Lilly's school as she usually does in a school morning. Lilly's school is called Bell Free Primary School. Claire thankfully doesn't have to drive far, considering the youngest child's primary school is terrifically close to their house, which was the main reason Lilly was sent there.

As Lilly drives into the school car park, with tiny supermarkets nearby. Lilly remembers, like always, reminded of the possibility of buying sweets from the shops, "Mum, can we get something at the shop after school?" she hopes.

Those words make Claire dread. Having to hear those words constantly, and constantly, and constantly just makes her sick of can, we, get, something, at, the, shop, after, school words. She knows by "something", she means, sweets, it's just general sense with a child. But, you can't blame her, Claire knows that, children have a sweet tooth, and they love their sugar.

"How about we see how we feel after school?" she asks, not necessarily asking. The mother hopes for some promising words as a reply so she doesn't have to deal with anymore.

"Is there a point? You know I'm gonna feel like having sweets after school" the little girl replies, having a point.

"Yeah, I know".

Claire parks the car. Lilly escapes and immediately runs to the school's front playground with a fast-moving, "Bye!" to her mum.

"Bye, love you!" her mum shouts to her daughter, as she waves at her daughters back.

"Oh, hey Lilly!" two girls said separately, both the same age as her. "We're playing tag!" one of them adds while running excitedly around, athletically dodging other students side by side. Lilly joins in on the fun, with a rush of excitement and joy, on a normal dry morning. God, Claire wished she still had that energy and enjoyment.

She watches her daughter, and her daughter's friends play altogether, having the time of their lives, in the easiest game to play ever, in terms of what they need to do. Claire just looks at them in deep thought. She has never done this before. This shows her she is turning old. She remembers this is something that her mum would do, the traditional mum she was, making sure her daughter was as safe as possible. However, this isn't exactly what Claire is doing, she is looking at her daughter as jealousy, and as herself and how she used to be. It's not like she doesn't like her life now, she likes her life now, it's not the best, but it's not the worst, she is content. But, it's what her life was is what matters to Claire right now. At how young she was. At how quickly the time went by.

She is happy that her daughter his happy, like Claire, used to be happy.

She takes a second to gaze at the wonder of what she would do differently in her life. Whether she would buy the chocolate or strawberry glazed donut, whether she would have never met Dean, whether she got into Art School, what would happen then?

She knows that this is not a bad thing to think about, in fact, it is guiltless. But, she can't help but feel a sense of guilt throughout thinking in the past, of what could have happened, rather than, what can happen.

She looks at the hysterical children in happiness. But, in the future;

She would look at the hysterical children in sadness.

She would look at the children in numbers, picking out whether which one is dead, which ones could be alive. Or, whether they're all dead. There is no way at least one didn't die. So, probably all of them. There is no way of knowing. They are all probably one of "them".

She realizes, oh, how quickly moods of memories can change over a short distance of time and a colossal event in history that changed the world itself, and everything itself.

But, that was after The Change.

This is before.

Happiness.

Claire recalls that some shopping would need to be done. She steps out of the car. And starts to walk towards the shops. Until she bumps into a familiar face, Trisha, her friend, who is also a parent, whose daughter is also friends with Claire's daughter. So, friends!

Trisha shouts, "Hey", glad to see her.

"Hiya" Claire calls.

"I actually needed to talk to you about something, and I totally forgot, but you reminded me!" Trisha shouts still, being very loud. Trisha is definitely a very loud person. And, she's one of those women who you would assume to be lonely, and ones that think they are doing loads of work, even though they really aren't, and they'd be tired out over a couple of things they've magically performed resulting in them being stressed. Yeah, one of those women, not exactly pleasant.

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" curious to what it could be. Claire still notices Trisha's unusual quirks, but she is more used to them now.

"Me and the girls were wondering whether you'd want to go to the cinema tonight, to watch the new Mother's Day movie! It looks really good!" Trisha asks, genuinely hoping for Claire to accept, even though it was asked very late, but Trisha doesn't seem to get that.

"Tonight? Um, no, I can't, sorry" Claire maneuvering out of the situation, believing that she would have come if they asked earlier.

"Aw, are you sure? Us mothers need this. We hardly get the chance to do stuff like this, with our children, we barely get enough time to breathe! We need to have breaks, and what better time to do that than Friday night?" Trisha remarks, trying her best to persuade Claire while talking for everyone.

Claire reasons, "No, I mean, I can't. It's activity night tonight with my family. The kids are already dreading it, can't call it off now".

"Oh, right. Maybe we can do it a different time than", Trisha creates, attempting to discover a silver lining.

"Yeah, of course. Unless it's activity night then, too!" Claire accepts, and jokes.

Trisha overly laughs, "Okay, great. I'll tell the other girls".

"Alright. Bye!" Claire leaves.