300 words or less flash fiction contest entries. |
Flash
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Bernard Rossiter turned right off Load Street and into the carpark. He was late. He steered his vehicle along rows of parked cars, each carelessly positioned between faded white lines with varying degrees of consideration. At the farthest corner, and in the shade of the adjoining Court House, he pulled into the last available bay. He looked at his watch. He turned to the left, then the right, then he glanced in his rear-view mirror. There was no one about. In front of him he could see the refuse skips and recycling bins of the Coroner’s Office. A roller shutter door was just going down. It closed with a shuddering rattle of metal slats as they cascaded together, then settled in uniformed, silent lines. Bernard looked at the cider bottle on the front passenger seat. He picked it up, twisted off the cap and lifted it to his lips. A gust of wind whistled past the car, caressed an untidy scattering of fallen leaves into a swirling storm of motion. Bernard paused and watched the choreographed foliage as it twisted ever higher, then suddenly fell into a neat pile. He finished the contents of the bottle. He was very late. His phone rang. “Yes?” he said. Bernard listened. His expression didn’t change, his eyes didn’t blink. A minute later, and without hanging up, he put the phone on the front passenger seat next to the empty cider bottle. “Suicide,” he whispered. He took a picture of his wife from his wallet. Bernard cried. The roller shutter door rose. Two men stood there. A security guard and a middle-aged man wearing a yellow high-visibility waistcoat. “Did you hear that?” one of them asked. “Yeah. Sounded like a gun shot.” “Bernard? BERNARD!” came the voice from the phone. Word Count: 297 My entry for the "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" |