A Woman I Don’t Like

She is a tall woman. With sleek shiny brown hair, shoulder length. Her eyebrows are thick and sharp and give her the appearance of a forceful character. She is quite tall, well-built, and I think she has passed the age of 40.

She likes to wear tweed, waistcoats, crisp white shirts, jeans and tall black boots, almost like wellies, that reach just below her knee.

She always walks in with some kind of blazer on.

Her cheeks are ruddy, her eyes bright and black and sparkling, and she is the epitome of health and moral judgement.

And I just don’t like her.

I don’t even know her. She has a distinct Northern accent, which takes away from her outwardly ‘charm’, somewhat. Hah. What charm?

Laugh like a cackling witch; abrasive to the ears. Like a hacking saw, pierced with her slightly shrill voice. Not shrill, entirely, no.

It’s a concave voice. It has sharp edges and a sickly centre. It’s loud and a little abrasive, and, coupled with her accent, entirely distasteful. In fact, I despise it. It rings out through our large office floor periodically, and you can always hear every single thing she has to say.

Why do I hate her?

When she smiles, you see, she smiles right through me. I catch her looking darkly at me in the mirror sometimes, in the bathroom, and it is not a pleasant look. She is cheerful enough and talkative with plenty of other people, but I feel an icy blast when she looks in my direction. And after she has smiled at me, for a second or two, her eyes move on and her smile vanishes, because it never quite reached her eyes.

She is monotonous and boring. I have no desire to find out anything more about her. I think she is cold and cruel and judgemental. I have sat through a few of her presentations and almost fallen asleep. She is like metal, with no centre. She spends her lunch breaks sitting with this balding man with white hair, and they sit and share their food and talk in low voices. He certainly isn’t her husband because he is a Smith and she is a Furrow-Womble, meaning she has merged her name with a Womble. She has kids, I know, and oughtn’t that to mellow somebody out?

And why is she nice to everybody else, except me? Everybody is nice to me. I always smile at people and make them laugh. What’s not to like? She dismisses me in the rudest way.

She is just cruel. Cruel and wears boots and tweed, and laughs like a honking goose.

I just don’t like that woman.

Is there anybody you don’t like, without any particular reason?

A Grotesque Old Woman