Flash Fiction

Lips moving without words, soft, unspoken. Tasting the lemonade from her cup and telling. She crossed her legs and sat back into the chair, letting her arms flop over at either side of the armrest, as though to portray an image of being somehow cool. I mean, the thing that bothered me the most was she didn't even pretend to care. Her reputation was longer than her arm and not in a good sense, but she managed get her claws into him somehow.

Hindsight occured to me as I walked back from the party late that night. I knew I should have called him but I continued into the scattered darkness and hurried home. I opened my purse and took out the door key, wiping my feet hastily on the mat as I entered the house.

I hated coming home to an empty house, though sharing it with somebody after living by myself for so long was a far worse concept. Peace and quiet is sometimes all I desire, moments away from the madness. Time to observe lifes precious gifts, borrowed time that waits for no man like a bubble that breaks at my very touch and transcends into over a thousand drops of liquid on the floor.

I brushed unopened letters carefully to one side with my foot and stumbled into the living room to switch on the light. My attention was immediately drawn to a box sitting on my coffee table, it wasn't there when I left and I certainly didn't put it there. I walked over cautiously. The lid sprung open, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found hiding inside. A dark figure caught my eye I glanced up and to my astonishment she stood there, leaning against the doorway with a knife in her hand.

I felt a lump appear in my throat as I tried to wash it down with a huge gulp, my chest tightened and the sweat poured from my forehead. "Would you like me to get you a drink" she said dissapearing into the kitchen and wearing the apron my mother had bought me as a joke last christmas.


© 2007 Juliet Forshaw