Tag: short story

Cost of comfort

The residents uphill would always remember Marcus as a strong and capable fellow. Not only did he possess the charm to attracted followers, but also the passion to serve.

He’d grown up insufficient, his family dabbling in poverty. That, he often said, helped him define his priorities. When he first assumed office, he’d assumed to provide for those who trusted him. It was his duty.

No one foresaw the years that followed. From being confident and enthusiastic, Marcus evolved. Processions and possessions weighed him down. Routines and meetings disrupted his dreams.

Soon, he’d become the laziest ant on the hill.

Just because

Richard Davis snorted.

The means didn’t matter as long as he achieved what he wanted. He wasn’t going to pass up on this opportunity.

In fact, he reasoned making notes in his scrawly schoolboy handwriting, aliens don’t belong here. We’d be wasting our resources catering to them.  We have enough problems already without those ugly miscreants, too.

Smooth talker Richard had no difficulty swaying members of the ministry. He became the first official to propose and pass the law that denied livelihood to thousands of foreign workers.

“Well, gentlemen, they’re a hazard to local employment,” he’d declared.

Richard hated brown.

Coming to terms

“C’mon, just a little bit…” she cooed.

“Get it away from me, will you? I hate that stuff.”

Fooling his sister was easy enough, but just the thought of keeping it up forever nauseated him.

As Julia jabbed her brush at him yet again, he snapped. Grabbing her brush, he cracked it like a twig. “Just drop it,” he yelled, making her storm out in protest to tell on him.

Alone, Mike turned to the mirror. He picked up the smaller end of the broken brush and tried on the blush that lingered on the bristles.

It wasn’t so bad.

 

Dilemma

Kevin and Carla wouldn’t even dream of hurting Dorothy. They knew, only too well, that the truth would hurt her beyond consolation—and they couldn’t do that to her. Besides, still young and learning to navigate society as a married couple, they didn’t want to become the inhospitable hosts.

Art didn’t pay as Kevin had hoped and everyone assumed Carla’s poetry was a hobby. Regardless of the meagre potions for themselves, they did their best to cope with Dorothy. After all, she’d raised them when they were orphaned. How would they tell her she was a wrinkle in their lives?

All in good time

“He wandered away in wonderment, pondering awondering…”

“Oh, that’s tacky. Writing like that will get you no where—shows how desperate you are to establish yourself as a writer. Don’t do that. Just be cool.

Huh?

Unable to decipher the critic’s reasoning, Julia observed the writer’s crestfallen face from a distance. She was perplexed. The sentence sounded fine to her, even ambitious with the coining of a new term. Writers always took the poetic license—it was their nature.

“Write the way people speak. Be natural.” Came the critic’s afterthought.

Ah! The times they’re a changing, realised the time traveller.