Archives for October 2013

Last Call

By Jim Anderson

Larry told her before last call. “Your brother’s dead.” Just like that.

Janay sagged against the bar.

“You OK?”

“For a bartender, you got shitty people-skills.”

“Take off, why don’t you.”

She shook her head. “He said he was invincible. I guess he believed it.”

Janay finished the shift. Later, her mother was predictable. “They shot him in the street,” she said. “Like a dog.”

“I never saw a dog shot. How they do that?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“He didn’t deserve to be done that way.”

Janay wasn’t sure what he deserved.

“We gotta get out of here,” she said.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #352 at Velvet Verbosity.

Mr. Anonymous

By Jim Anderson

She returned to the table after the drinks arrived. George smiled. Perfect timing.

“I’ve been dreaming about this all day,” she said, dropping the lime wedge into her gin-and-tonic. Then she looked at George and laughed. “Do I sound like a lush?”

“You sound like a woman who knows what she wants.”

“I wish!”

She sipped her drink.

What a lovely throat. He could feel his fingers closing around it.

“This isn’t Tanqueray!”

George rocked back. Before he could speak, she was up, marching toward the bar, glass in hand.

He swore, then hurried for the door and the night.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #351 at Velvet Verbosity.

Gerald the Underhanded

By Jim Anderson

Prince Gerald had an epiphany. Half-way unto the breach, he feigned a leg cramp. Thus, brave brother Rainer surged ahead and climbed the rubble-pile first, closely followed by a hundred men-at-arms.

Rainer tumbled down as fast, an arrow through the eye. The whispers began immediately. Later, the battle won, the castle carried, Gerald marveled at his insight. I will be king, he thought. And so he was. With Rainer’s bones interred and his widow warming the royal bed, the whispers grew.

“A king must rise above mere rumor,” Gerald said.

His reign was long, enlightened and generous; his name, immortal.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #350 at Velvet Verbosity.