Thursday, May 19, 2011

Insignificant.

5:30.
Damn.

I hurriedly finished eating my breakfast. Taking a sip of my poorly made instant coffee, I slipped out of the door and into the cool morning air.
Sitting in the worn out drivers seat of my ancient car, I had a couple of seconds to think about how I would spend my last employed week of my life. I had better hand in my resignation papers soon. Then off to the beach to spend the rest of my young, but so far wasted, life.
I laughed mirthlessly to my self. More likely I would spend it wasting away in my tiny rented house, living off government benefits while missing my daughter and her mother.

The engine made a couple of feeble attempts at turning over, before starting with a reassuring growl. I was already 15 minutes late, but today I was in no hurry.

I pulled in to the station.

5:52.

I said hello to Christine, the accountant. She was a nice lady. Pretty, too. Maybe one day I could ask her to- No.
I could never do that to Stephanie. I could never replace her.

As I stepped on to the train I saw today there were about seven passengers, which was a bit unusual for this time of morning.

I started my well-drilled routine. 'Ticket please.' Take offered ticket. Hole punch ticket. Hold out ticket for collection.

I went through this for every passenger, through the morning rush to work, midday lull and up until the influx of school children onto my train.
As I was checking the ticket of kid after kid, I saw one boy, about 16, try to discreetly make his way to the toilet. Hiding in the toilet to escape being caught without a ticket. How original.

I let him interrupt my precious schedule, and walked over the to the toilet door.
Knock, knock, knock. 'Please open the door, sir.' Unsurprisingly, he did not comply.

I didn't feel the bullet enter my stomach. The commuter's screams faded quickly. The warmth left my body, but I wasn't cold. Someone was crouching over me, but I didn't really notice.
I was thinking about Stephanie, and my baby girl, who I had never met.

Then, nothing.


'Back to the horrific train bombing this afternoon, there has been 38 confirmed dead, including 15 school children. One man was found with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Inspector David La...'

The man turned off the television. He had better things to think about.


A short story I wrote for English a couple of months ago.

10 comments:

  1. Crazy little short story there haha alot going on, you have more you will post up later on?

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  2. I suck at making coffee too... lol , have a nice day

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  3. Nice story man, must have passed your English class.

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  4. wow, that was pretty intense! very nice and well written.

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  5. Very good story! I have written several stories, but they're in lithuanian

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  6. I was wondering if that was really you writing all that from the beginning. Then I saw the gunshot part and I was actually a bit worried that maybe you had been a gunshot victim. Then I find out that it was just something you wrote for English class. You dog, you haha.

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  7. He had better things to think about...

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  8. Very interesting story, got any more?

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  9. So much in such a small story!

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  10. I really liked it, thanks for sharing, and I think Stephanie could be a great character in a novel =) take care!

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