This is the latest serving of ‘Double Espresso’; two short stories based on the same prompt - a 50-word tale, and a 100-word imagining. Two sho(r)t stories … the Double Espresso.
We have been away on a 33-day cycling trip from France to Wales and back again. I took a notebook on the off-chance I’d need to scribble down ideas or prompts, but the pages remained blank, which felt okay. Now, back home and reflecting I find that I’ve missed words and the flow of ideas. I am curious about how they will come back … perhaps I am interested in whether they will return. I guess the only way to find out is to open the laptop and start typing.
‘Fifties by the Fire’ is an encouraging and nurturing home for writers of micro-fiction; the prompts - generously offered by Justin Deming - elicit 50-word compositions of the highest quality. I have missed participating and reading other writers’ contributions while I have been away.
Belatedly, I grabbed a space before the embers died on a fire lit back on 12 July.
The prompt is ‘rejuvenation’ … an idea came to mind for an imagined dystopian future. As I write this introduction, I hope something lighter emerges to counterbalance the darkness of that future. Read on to find out.
I hope you enjoy these short stories, designed to be sipped as Coffee Break fiction.
Donor
The Director cursed the drug-damaged veins of the man thrashing against thick leather restraints. He cursed the rare blood group required to rejuvenate his 111-year-old President, a racist bigot who, had he been awake, would have damned to hell the Guatamalan gangster who held the key to his next term.
(50 words)
Just One Week
When he walked her to the private jet precisely one week before he had worried about the sickly pallor his boss wore as a badge of honour. Sixty-hour weeks and sixty black market menthol cigarettes a day explained the pallid complexion and her sandpaper phone manner. A booking for ‘a week in the sun with a friend’ had thrown them all. Did she even have friends? He waited, fidgeting nervously with the lighter. It took a moment for him to realise that the sun-kissed beauty emerging from the plane arm-in-arm with a handsome ‘friend’ was his boss, a woman rejuvenated.
(100 words)
The first story seems an uncomfortably possible glimpse into the future.
Donor is a powerful story. You did a lot in so few words. I love it.