Some scene setting. I’m the one whose back you can see. I won’t show my face. I don’t want people to see it, particularly not when I am with her. There’s is nothing wrong with her, I should say, but her is the connection to him and I definitely don’t want to be connected with him.
Ahhh … I can sense your interest now. And frustration. You want to know if I’m talking about you know who.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
As we’re friends, let’s say it’s the maybe, to which you reply, well as we’re friends, what has he done?
You’re itching to know. I get it. But it’s bad. Not that type bad. That’s bad, bad. This is more, did you hear that rumour about … bad. The one that makes you look at those books and wonder, if he didn’t write them, who …
Oh … darn. Said a bit much there. And now I’ve got you thinking. Did you want a moment to go and stair at your bookcase? I don’t mind. I’ve got until the cigarette of hers runs out.
She didn’t used to smoke. He got her onto it. Just as he got her in front of people. The right people for him. The wrong people for her. The people she wanted were the people he wanted. And what he wanted was what he’d seen early on in a drawer in her old flat.
It’s a great read, he’d said. I could help you get it noticed.
That would be amazing, she’d said.
It’s not quite there, he’d said. Needs a little work first. I can take a better look if you want?
Sure, she’d said. Take a look. No-one else ever will.
Poor thing was so wrong.
All the players got to take a look. All the same day too as eight boxes with eight copies got personally delivered the same day, by the same person. Him.
Normally they would go into the bin. Unsolicited. Non-represented. No-name. Go in the bin.
And where she did not have a name yet, he did.
His name on the front of the manuscript keeps him from the bin where it would have died.
But it didn’t die.
It came to life
Sold millions.
Made him millions.
And now here she is standing outside a court with me, passing a cigarette, trying to lure you in with a tale.
Suitably lured?
Good.
Let’s go get him.
This fictional short story was written for a 50 Day Project organised by the artist Amanda Billing. I get 45 minutes to an hour (not the project’s rules, it’s just about the time I have right now) to write a story, sometime between 4.30am and 5.30am. After that, the day is no longer mine.
N.B. The sketch image for this short story was created using AI (at best, I can draw a half-decent stick man). The words are all mine.
Suggested Further Reading:
