Saturday, August 18, 2012

A slither of hope

‘It’s your turn, Coles, I did the last one.’

The big man nodded, chewing the inside of his cheek.

‘I fucking hate doing them,’ his companion continued.

He stared over at the drab, semi-detached house.

‘I can take seeing the body, but the family ... fuck, can’t sleep for a week.’

He pushed open the car door and trudged across the quiet road, trying to mentally compose the words that might break it gently.  Humanely.

The front door was opened by a man with grey hair and skin, his eyes nursing a slither of hope.

There’d be little sleep tonight.




A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rob - You have a real talent for conveying much in just a few sentences. This is very powerful.

Marina Sofia said...

This is wonderfully evocative, with such economy of words. Just how I aspire to write (but sadly, verbosity gets in the way).

Rob Kitchin said...

Thanks Margot, Marina. Don't worry, I can do verbosity as well! The nice thing about drabbles is that you can't be anything other than economical with words. Whether the pieces work as rounded stories is a different matter, however.