Short Stories and other fiction

My son's English teacher gave them a kind of cool writing assignment. She gave them a bunch of first lines from famous novels--they were supposed to choose one (that they didn't know the plot of) and then continue it. My son chose Mrs. Dalloway.

Mrs. D

Mrs. D said she would buy the flowers herself. I wanted to stop her, you know, trying to be a good person, but the stubborn old hag has to do everything. She’s so horribly depressed already; I can’t imagine that trudging through the snow and breaking her hip will help much. Her crease lined face and hunched shoulders add to her façade of lonely widowhood, but underneath the wilted flower exterior is the angry, cane waving, no nonsense woman that only someone like me can befriend. Why she’s so uncharacteristically melancholy today, I don’t understand. My suspicion is that it’s some kind of “End life crisis”. At 99, Mrs. D has reached an age that only the stubborn come close to. While most people would simply accept that their time was coming soon and make arrangements, console loved ones, etc. etc. etc, but not Mrs. D. She’s been in and out of the hospital for months, lying on her bed, watching the chameleon flash of lightning come down from the storms above, but she always bounces back, never being the least bit bothered by death or other unimportant things that would make other people go into Post-Traumatic Shock. As I watch her walk back down the street, my mind’s in a million other places. I see her clutch at her chest; she drops the azaleas she had bought as if they were on fire. As she slowly gets up from the sidewalk she looks up at me.

“Who are you?” She asks defiantly.

“No one special.” I reply, “Would you like to take a walk?”