This is the first time I've posted anything to this forum so I thought I would start with a very short piece I had published on The Weaponizer site so people can get a handle on the sort of thing I write/have written.
Comments or whatever are much appreciated!
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Running
A small Volkswagen Beetle weaves in and out of the motorway traffic, cutting up cars and articulated Lorries as it finds the narrowest of gaps to pass between; never once dropping a mile on its speedometer. A young couple are sat inside it; both of them will be dead in a little under twenty minutes. As the small, thin hand on the speedometer hits its highest mark the young guy driving will feel the steering wheel slip. The slightest loss of control will cause the car to swerve, he will attempt to correct the mistake, but by then it will be too late. The front bumper will make contact with the pressed steel of the barrier running along the central reservation and with the driver’s act of sharply pulling down on the left of the steering wheel, he will cause the car to turn sharply and cross two lanes before being hit by the front of an oncoming lorry in the middle lane. The car will be sent spinning towards the hard shoulder where it will collide with another pressed steel barrier. Its speed will cause it to rebound back towards the lorry and the occupants will be sent hurtling underneath. It is at that moment, as the back of the lorry lifts up, and over their car that they will be crushed. They will die instantly.
For now, they are still alive.
The driver is around 25, light brown hair, tall, athletic; she is younger, somewhere in the region of 22 and has long blonde hair which she occasionally flicks out of her face with a sharp shake of her head. They are running. They have been for many months. One autumn day they realised that they were unhappy, life was drifting along at a monotonous pace and they both began to question their very existences. They knew they were not unhappy with each other, but somewhere they felt as though things could be better. He was stuck in a dead-end job, numbers would pass in front of his eyes on a glowing LCD screen every day, and he just had to make sense of them. She was a university student doing a course in journalism and was approaching the end of her final year. As economies collapsed the young man watched the ominous numbers fall, turn red and appear in brackets or with a small dash preceding them, whilst at the same time the girl watched as Newspapers went out of business and journalists all over the world began to battle for less and less jobs. One year ago they found each other, sat in opposite corners of an empty bar, neither one touching their drinks, afraid of what might happen if they let their emotions come to the fore. Their eyes met, they felt excitement for the first time in years, they looked away.
Closing time came and they both exited the bar together, he turned to her and asked if he could buy her lunch one day. She accepted. Over the next few months they grew closer, occasionally meeting by accident, often in quiet bars. They would sit and talk for hours but neither one knew what the other did, the topic never came up; as far as they were concerned they lived two lives, one with each other, one without. For a while they managed to maintain a balance between the two, but eventually their lives without began to take over and they found themselves unhappier than when they first met. Then came that autumn day; stood in the small town square trying to decide where to have dinner, the young girl exhaled slowly before breaking their only rule.
“I’m scared of the future”
“Yeah me too”
“I’m about to enter a world that is crumbling away in front of me. Journalism is dead, that’s what they say. Yet somehow I’ve got to find a job.”
“I’m stuck in a job that has sapped my life; I’m no longer awake at work. I’m just there in a physical sense.”
Silence passed between them as they stood there waiting for the other one to speak. Looking back neither one can remember who suggested running away from it all, but that is what they did. They headed to his car, climbed in and drove out of the city. That night they left behind their lives without each other and finally began to live solely with each other. Before they die they will share one last kiss, they will also exchange words one final time.
“I’m glad we ran…”
They have nineteen minutes left.
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