22 August 2008

Fiction Friday (22 August 2008)

After a bit of a break, I am back :)

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for August, 22 2008:

Have your character steal something. Now have her rationalize it.

 

She held her breath, and reached out her hand when he wasn’t looking. She felt it in the palm of her hand as she withdrew it, and fingered it in her pocket as she ran all the way back to the bus stop.

I am so going to hell for this, she thought.

She walked slowly, out of breath, to the back of the bus and sat down in the corner. The two old biddies in the front of the bus hardly noticed her, and there is no-one else on the bus.

She pulled it out of her pocket and lay it in the palm of her hand. It sparkled as the sunlight caught it through the window.

“This is silly,” she whispered.

She turned it around with her finger. It cast a million rainbows on the back of the seat in front of her.

“You’re just a piece of glass,” she smiled. “Serves him right.”

She felt a bit better, but her knees were still weak.

His words rang through her head, “You, young lady, don’t belong here.” She blushed again.

These damned hoity-toities thought the world belonged to them. It was his tone, and the way he spoke to her through his nose that made her take it.

Just a silly piece of glass.

She had the money to pay for it – it was going to be a gift for her brother – but the more he puffed out his chest, the more the blood rushed to her head.

She shook her head again, and closed her fingers over the little glass ball.

“He won’t even miss it,” she said to her reflection. There was a big bowl filled with them, little glass balls in all the colours of the rainbow. She wanted just one, to hang in her brother’s bedroom – she hoped the sparkles would lighten his room and give him something to stare at other than the gray wall.

She put it back in her pocket – oh so carefully – and walked to the front of the bus. It stopped right in front of the hospital, so she only had the short walk across the lawn, up one flight of stairs and down the corridor to her brother’s room.

“How is he today,” she asked the nurse at the station outside his room.

The nurse pursed her lips and smiled, “Same as yesterday, dear, same as yesterday.”

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awwwww! How sad! And how sweet! What a nice post. I love the train of thought pattern and her justifications. I was totally there with her!

That's my two pence...

Arial ;)

www.EnchantedWoodz.com
www.EnchantedWoodz.com/arialburnz
http://arialburnz.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

Very beautiful ,and delicate. One of the bteer stories I've read this week.

Anonymous said...

Brotherly and sisterly love, that's what it is.

Anonymous said...

Very nicely done. . . for some reason many of this week's stories remind me of something from my childhood. In this story, the "you. . . don't belong here." was a great way to portray the unfairness in life that soemtimes leads someone to a rash act (theft) for a good cause (helping your brother).

Anonymous said...

beautifully written and keeps reader guesing the whole way - who is this male she is going ot visit? lover, grandad,? father?

hugs..

oh - and you are 'it'- thought you might like this....
http://annieevett.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-are-you-so-meme-to-me.html

Anonymous said...

Tugged at the heart strings it did (c;

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