Friday Fictioneers — In Deep Water

PHOTO PROMPT © The Reclining Gentleman

Where have you gone? Your suits and ties are hanging in your wardrobe. Your toothbrush and shaver are in the bathroom.

On the kitchen counter are ten neatly folded chocolate wrappers, all empty, and a dose of insulin untouched. Beside these, sits your mobile phone and a silver coin.

Your phone rings. It’s my number calling.

‘Hello?’

‘Alice?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘Nobody of consequence.’

‘Is that you, Charles? You sound strange.’

‘I’ve read your text messages.’

‘I can explain.’

‘Heads … I die. Tails … your lover dies.’

‘It was nothing serious.’

‘Car’s sinking fast. No signal soon. Then you lose us both.’

 #

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories
Prompt: image (c) The Reclining Gentleman

Author: Sarah Potter Writes

Sarah is a British eccentric who writes offbeat fiction, haiku and tanka poetry. When stuck for words, she sketches or paints instead. She's into nature conservation, sustainability, gardening, dogs, natural health, and reading. Her sociability is something that happens in short bursts with long breathing spaces in between.

42 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers — In Deep Water”

      2. Yes, I do. I’m not a writer who plots my stories in advance. I start out with a scene/situation/dilemma and a character or two, then hand over to the characters to see where they lead me. I read somewhere that’s how Stephen King writes. It’s much more fun that way, as those characters will often surprise the writer.

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  8. Dear Sarah,

    I love the way you built the tension. What stood out to me were the ten folded chocolate wrappers and the untouched insulin. That in itself told a story.

    So well done in every detail.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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    1. Thank you, so much, Alicia 🙂 Dialogue without tags leaves so much more to the reader’s imagination, although it can lead to confusion at times. When I read Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall”, I kept having to flick back pages to check who was talking. It was most frustrating and has prevented me from reading another novel of hers, however interesting the subject matter.

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    1. He’s playing with her emotions and diverting her from the main reason for his disappearance. A diabetic who’s eaten ten chocolate bars and not taken his insulin, is possibly intending to commit suicide, yet he asks her to toss a coin about who should die — him or her lover. As Bjorn says: “I wonder if he cares a toss about the toss”. In other words, does he intend to kill himself and the lover, too, whatever way the coin falls?

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      3. I think that someone with Type 1 diabetes would react badly to either extreme. Anyway, if you thought your hours were numbered, wouldn’t you be tempted to have a farewell binge on your favourite forbidden food?

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    1. Thank you, so much, Margaret 🙂 Such positive comments! She’s certainly in a most unenviable position. I regularly wipe my text messages, not because I’m up to anything much, but just out of principle. They’re private.

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  17. The lesson to this story is either don’t cheat or be sure to remove your old text messages. Sounds like he’s getting revenge by drowning himself. A divorce would have been simpler, but not as good a story. This was a perfect example of depression in action. Well done, Sarah. —– Suzanne

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    1. Thanks, Suzanne. He’s certainly in a sorry state as a consequence of her texts. The thing is, an insecure or paranoid person is more likely to take a sneak look at their partner’s text messages than a confident and steady person. That being said, there are some incredibly nosy people in this world, who are also mega-confident!

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    1. Occasionally my pieces of flash fiction have sparked something longer. The last time this happened, a 400-word story ended up acting as a trigger for a 65K-word novel — not immediately, but a year later. So you never know …

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