Hm. Okay, I just finished reading through the story, and there are a few problems I see. First of all, though, I'd like to point out that you did a good job beginning with the image of food and then twisting it into something ironic. In short stories especially, irony is one of the best tools at the writer's disposal, in my opinion.
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She crossed the street and stood on the opposite corner, it seemed everyone who passed her by was eating.
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These two sentences need to be joined by either a semicolon or seperated by a period. A comma here doesn't work. Of course, sometimes it's okay to join two independent clauses by a comma but only when they are both short and/or a twist on each other. For example, "He was the best, she the worst."
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A large distracted business man rushed by a phone against his ear, a napkin wrapped burger pressed to his greedy mouth.
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However, in this case you do need a comma right after "by," especially when you have a predicate phrase ending in a preposition.
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Two young girls passed chatting and sharing fries from a paper carton, their giggles obnoxious to her ears.
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A comma is needed after "passed." "Their giggles obnoxious to her ears" sounds too repetitive since you just used the same structure twice a sentence ago.
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Nothing was fresh and clean, the crisp clear green day of her fantasy was tawdry and bleak.
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Once again, you need a period or a semicolon—or a coordinating conjunction like "and" would work. And in keep in mind that if you have two sentence right next to each other that use the same verb, you can get rid of the second verb. For example, it would be perfectly acceptable to write, "Nothing was fresh and clean. The crisp clear green day of her fantasy tawdry and bleak." How you join those two sentences is a matter of style. You could use the example I just provided or use semicolons, and even commas, in between.
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Gum lay trapped forever on the pavement, flat and grey; a mirror image of the day.
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A colon would fit more nicely after "grey." And the comma after "pavement" makes the adjectives "flat and grey" modify the gum rather than the pavement. Remove that comma.
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This was all wrong, all horrible, her meeting with him should be perfect, there should be only green’s and blue’s, soft shades and dappled sunlight; greys and newsprint could only herald doom.
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Change the commas after "horrible" and "perfect" to periods. "Green's and blue's" should be "greens and blues" because they are not possessive. The semicolon after "sunlight" is okay, but I'd probably change it to a period. I've found myself avoiding semicolons if possible lately.
I don't know if that's the best way to phrase what you're going for. As a matter of fact, it's difficult to understand what you mean because softening, to me anyway, doesn't really make sense when applied to vision and rain and all that jazz.
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Soon umbrellas popped as daffodils from a hardened spring ground; feet flying along pavements, as strangers invaded personal space.
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After popped, "as" should be either "like" or "as do" since you're actually comparing the umbrellas to how the daffodils sprout, not the daffodils themselves. Change the semicolon after "ground" to a comma because it acts as a participal. Delete the comma after "pavements" and then change that word to "pavement."
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It was ruined now, grubby and crowded; the temporary silence filled with horns blaring and the angry steam from car engines.
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What is "it"? Change this unclear pronoun to "the day" or maybe even "the scene" (or whatever you want/mean, actually). Change semicolon after "crowded" to a comma. I'd delete the "the" before "angry."
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She looked skywards as huge droplets of water cascaded by her face, plastering her newly styled hair to her head; it was ruined, just like this day.
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Change "skywards" to "skyward." And I don't think water would cascade "by her face" but "onto her head [or scalp or whatever]." Change the word "ruined" to something else since you just used it.
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And all these people, and him – striding from the building opposite, his umbrella cocooning his face, his brow no doubt furrowed beneath the shadow of cover.
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The dash after "him" should not be surrounded with spaces. It should be "him—striding" with an em-dash (alt+0151 on Windows computers). Also, I'm a big fan of inverted adjectives and that sort of thing, but "the building opposite" doesn't really work well that way because it seems to demand an "Opposite of what?" Just write, "the opposite building."
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He had not even looked to see if she was there, as he covered great distance with his long legged stride.
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The "was" after "if she" needs to be changed to "were" because by making the situation hypothetical, the mood is changed to the subjunctive. I know it sounds foreign, but just trust me on this one.
Also, I don't know if "as" is the best way to connect these two idea. I'd probably just rewrite the second half of this sentence if I were you.
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It all looked like rubbish now, like the newspaper strip suddenly set free by a persistent water droplet, swooning to the ground to be carried away on a Michelin tyre.
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There's gotta be a better verb than "swooning" for this situation.
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She could not do this, the rain the people, the cars, the sordidness.
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Here I would probably use a fragment, even though it's grammatically incorrect. "She could not be here. The rain, the people, the cars: the horror." As you might have noticed, I would change "do this" to something else and add a comma after "rain." Also, please throw out the bold/italics before "sordidness." And I don't know if "sordidness" is a very good word—try "horror" or something like that.
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A girl ran past pushing a baby in a buggy, laughing as the little passenger flapped his arms screaming with glee dodging the puddles in their path.
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First of all, in order to make this sentence grammatically sound, you would have to add a comma after "past," "arms," and "glee." Further, add "her" after "past" (before the newly inserted comma). But this one holds way too many participial phrases. I would rewrite it.
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The lights changed at the pedestrian crossing and for a brief moment she glimpsed his face as someone jostled his arm.
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Throw in a comma after "crossing."
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She stepped from the shadows, walking briskly through the puddles, faster and faster moving against the flow of human traffic, faster and faster.
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Rearrange "faster and faster moving against the flow of human traffic" to "moving faster and faster against the flow of human traffic." Otherwise, this sentence turned out very nicely.
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Climbing from the cab, she righted the yellow and green bicycle against the fence.
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When did she get a bicycle? I'd mention this a little earlier because I always imagined her without one. Or you can simply scrap this sentence.
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She stepped quietly onto the porch, her two men sitting side by side; one with his eyes closed his lips parted.
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Change the semicolon after "side" to a comma, and add a comma after "closed."
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“He fell asleep watchin’ the rain” his dad told her patting the seat next to him “How come your home so soon anyway, lunch with the girls never ends this early”.
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Since you're apparently British ("tyre" and "grey"), I'll let someone else take on the dialogue. However, you do need to add a comma after "her dad told her."
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She contemplates him, relief in her heart; for the first time in too long, she really sees it all.
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You don't contemplate a person but a question or an idea. "She contemplated his question, relief in her heart." Change the semicolon to a period. And why did you suddenly switch into present tense? Go back to past tense: "contemplates" should be "contemplated," "sees" should be "saw." Furthermore, the phrasing of these two sentences just doesn't do the climax justice. This is one of the most important parts of your story—the epiphany. Give it a little flair!
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“I never really wanted what was on the menu after all”. She tells him taking his hand and holding it tightly in hers.
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Once again, "tells" should be "told," and you need to insert a comma after "him."
Finally, you need to restructure the entire short story. You should take all of the text from the beginning to "crushed on top of it" and make it one paragraph. The same goes for everything from "rain began" to "long-legged stride," from "it all looked" to "the sordidness," from "a girl ran past" to "faster and faster," and from "Climbing from the cab" to "tightly in hers."
So, here're my recommendations: (a) Work on your grammar a bit, maybe pick up
The Elements of Style. (b) Keep reading (the classics) to get a better feel for the finer points of style. And (c) Keep writing! You've already exhibited a good feel for irony and how a story should progress. Grammar and all that other stuff can be learned, but what you have cannot. Overall, it's not a bad job. Most of the problems were related to grammar or phrasing.
