Orphelia

The detective stared at the canal.  The ripples from a passing swan ebbed and the glassy face reappeared just beneath the surface, a pale oval surrounded by a tangle of black hair.

He was joined by a colleague.

‘The divers are on their way.’

‘She looks like a pre-Raphaelite painting.’

‘Orphelia.’

‘What?’

‘By Millais.  Daughter of Polonius.’

‘Right.  Except a guy over there thinks she’s, and I quote, “the gobby Australian who was in The Roost last night”.’

‘Who met her Millais.’

‘Who’ll now be shipped ten thousand miles in a box.’

‘First we sent coffin ships, now simply coffins.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.