"Vera, darling, the newspapers are nothing more than an old man on your back, whispering in your ear, telling you what to think and feel. If you ever want to do more than swim downstream, you'll have to shake him off."
The daily paper was all the same: controversy, local drama and something grim to keep the cynics "happy." The articles were meaningless fodder, the advertorials even worse, but who'd ever read the adverts if they weren't there? Tim tossed it to the fraying couch.
Without warning the major capsized to his left, his daily paper falling about him like over-sized confetti. He lay still on the floor long before the loose leaves had found their place and even longer before the alarm bell rang.
Gran read the daily paper cover to cover. To her it was a link into the community that grew ever more distant. There was nothing like smashing a hip to make an old girl feel isolated. She kept the pages so neat, never a crease, just folding it once over before placing it in the newspaper rack and smoothing out her clothes. Then it was a chirpy call to her daughter for a shortbread and a cuppa. Every day was the same, only the printed words changed.
The daily paper made kitty litter look interesting. Aside from a the untimely death of a local magistrate (either too early or late depending on your point of view) it was less valuable than a blank page would have been. Sal would have dumped it in the compost had the advert on the back page not caught his eye. "Cash for running errands," wasn't the best title perhaps, but with the summer yawning ahead of him eating whatever his Mom scratched from the food-bank, he figured it was worth looking into...
The only sign of life was the daily paper rising and falling on top of his over-stuffed tweed jacket. Gloria absorbed the banal headlines before her eyes noticed the pool of saliva that made the top edge almost transparent and gummy. She gave her head an involuntary shake. What a way for such a man to spend his twilight years, soaking up drivel in a half-baked establishment for the terminally old.
Under the neat pressed clothing on the chair was a daily paper. Mac pulled it out. It was curious that the victim should have gone to an effort to hide something so inconsequential. Around the centre was a rubber band to keep it closed but other than that it was the same newspaper everyone else around here took. The date was only a couple of days prior and the pages were fine other than obviously having been rain splattered and dried. He pushed the rubber band off, letting it fall into a sample bag, who knew what would be a vital piece of evidence at this stage? Over his drop sheet he let the paper unfurl, nothing fell out but there was something highlighted in the back pages...
The daily paper was shrill as always - ranting titles to stir the middle classes into a more mobile type of apathy. The letters to the editor deserved to be printed in green ink and the photographs were framed just badly enough to be annoying. Chelsea scanned to the back, sports and jobs were all she wanted to know about. Somehow she always got waylaid on the obituaries and the pet section before she ever found what she was looking for.
Daily paper, cigar and earl grey tea - the major couldn't start his day without them. He'd be propped up in his winged arm chair, half moon glasses on, giving the paper a shake after each page turn. Without fail he'd find a story that would set him off on a rant and in those moments of pink-cheeked rage he could be no happier. Finding societal faults in his daily paper was what kept his old engine ticking over.
The daily paper lay over even the breakfast bowls; a page had been roughly torn out and milk was soaking into the drooping corners. Mabel took a quick glance to see what was taken. Apparently Gabrielle had seen a job advert in the back pages. Taking the lose leaves from the centre she plucked it from the table and crammed it into the recycling sack with a single punching action, snorting as she did so...
Daily papers had piled up at the door, a mountain of close typed black ink, the best and the worst of the parochial news. On the front, bright in the early morning light was the only coloured ink, just a splash to give the rag a more modern vibe. It was that morning, the first monday of May, that Mrs Trinket was passing and took note of the impromptu pile up on the coarse foot mat. She shuffled forwards, Roxy the pomeranian in tow...
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