Fifty Words: less is more

The smart-arse

His mother rang twice in an hour. He was sick, and I was sick of him, the little smart-arse.
The next time he opened his mouth I smacked it shut. Painfully.
That was the end of my teaching career and the start of my real life.
A lesson, a blessing.

Stand up for once

I opened my mouth to speak but someone got in before me. Everyone listened. I didn't, too concerned about being jumped. I sank back into my chair, arms folded in protective defeat.

One day, I'll really say what I think, I thought. I really mean it.

Well, I did then.

Giving birth

It took an unexpected period of gestation but the emerging being bore little resemblance to his parents. Slowly but surely, with angry assurance, pain bore down and pushed, savagely. The ageing infant, squeezed from his dark protection, blinked, became a man and felt his balls. At last he could see.

This doesn't happen in families, does it?

The phone rang. 

He answered. 

She was brutal and direct. 

He could not understand. 

She sliced him in the heart and he bled on and off for a year.

The number rang. 

She answered. 

He told the truth to a grey wall, no longer her. 

So he closed his heart.

The Good Samaritan

He sees her fall and breaks stride, running towards her. She lies on the cool, greening grass, her body a still-life. He freezes, panicking. Then training asserts itself. Kneeling, he positions his dark hands and rolls her prone.

The ageing, white face spits venom. 

'What are you doing? Hands off!'