Fiction: Brand New Diary

Homework for tomorrow's writing group meeting.

The first question you ask yourself, on receiving a brand new diary, is what to use it for. A repository for the important events of your day? An appointment book for work? The birthdays of relatives and nothing else?
For Sally, it represented a challenge. Too many false starts, broken promises, drizzly nights in pub courtyards making small-talk with strangers. Come January 1st, no cigarette would come near her lips. Every day, she would forgo the fags, and put a big tick in that day's box in her diary.
The first few days were the worst. Straws, pens, gum, anything to keep her mouth occupied. She almost cracked a few days, but was put off by the sheer amount of snow littering her workplace's designated smoking area. Better to stay in the toasty warm office, with a mug of hot tea and another box of those chocolate biscuit sticks. And, at the end of every day, the satisfaction of ticking the diary, looking at the progress she's made. Almost three weeks off the coffin nails! That definitely calls for another glass of wine.

Of course, like most resolutions, it didn't last. The diary lay forlornly in the drawer of junk, with only sixty-two boxes ticked. But, by then, Sally didn't need to tick the boxes any more.