On Joyce. A tale of two Joyces and their inadvertant choices

On Joyces

It’s a strange subject to go on about but lucky for me I have some experience in the field of Jocyes and I need a magic eight ball so I will tell you about two people I knew called Joyce.

Joyce Guinney drinks at the local pub and has a job at the Royal Bank. She does well for herself and her successes don’t seem coincidental. When she was born in Dubai, her Scottish expat family had to relocate back to the old country because of a rare condition she had. Basically if she was left out in the sun she would evaporate. Joyce Guinney has been getting it her own way ever since really.

The other Joyce is called Joyce Smail. In school they called her the Snail. She was shy and would wish she shared a shell in common with her invertebrate namesake. The nick name evolved with technology and at her work in the bakers her collegues would gently chide her by calling her ‘voice mail’. Bakers aren’t particularly quick witted.

Now, she may have been stretching the truth but the one time Joyce Guinney couldn’t get what she wanted actually involved Joyce Smail. She ‘may have been stretching the truth’ because when she told Ms Smail that she could not offer a refund of charges made to her account because of a slight overspend Smail made when half cut, she was in fact just lying.

Despite Smailys begging and pleading Joyce protested that her hands were tied.

“I wish I had a choice”

She emphasized the word ‘had’. Joyce Guinney was full of drama.

That night Joyce Guinney was in the pub rattling some jewelry she bought with a recent bonus. She got it for her ruthless history of retaining charges.

Joyce Smail was at the other end of the bar nursing a half pint of the cheapest lager before she had to go back to her bedsit and plough a bottle of super cider. I saw the whole thing but I didn’t know the back story between the two Joyces at the time.

All I though about was the time I lent her a DVD and when I went round to get it I saw her place. It was covered in books and ashrtyas and empty super cider bottles. It stunk.

The thing I remember most is she had a sign on her front door, it said something like

Speak your mind
Leave when you like
Come back anytime

It was a nice sign. It was funny, though. I bet she would have done anything to leave her nasty bedsit. She was too hopeless with money to do it. She had to drink but I doubt she wanted to. Last thing I heard was that she lost that place. And some rumours got around that it was Joyce Guinneys fault. People at the pub still chose to hang around with her though so who knows, eh?

I just want to finish by saying that I don’t think its fair having a Joyce competition because I’m lucky enough to know two and some people might not know any at all. Life’s not always fair though I suppose.


Copyright information
Decisions
by unistats.com
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I like this, the writing style is punchy and not as cliche-ridden and predictable as many of the shortlisted entries are. As with the entry about smoking nice to see some talent on the shortlist.

some people have made an effort and have got onto the shortlist.
i dont think its fair to not give some positives to entries (even if there are flaws.)
The comment box does say please be polite...

oops sorry i never gave an analysis...
I never really saw the decisions morale in this story, however much i liked it.

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