Time now for Friday Fictioneers, a writing challenge hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Fiction in 100 words. if you want to do it, click the link and follow the instructions. My story follows the photo. It’s autobiographical.
When I left the bar it started to rain hard.
On a whim, I offered to buy a woman’s umbrella.
Ten bucks, I said.
Twenty, she countered.
We settled for fifteen.
The rain hammered all around me, dry enough in my portable shelter, pretending I didn’t know where I was walking.
But I knew.
The front gate looked the same as the last time I saw it.
My father’s funeral had been sunny, just as my grandmother’s had been twenty years before.
The gate wasn’t locked, but I would never again be welcomed.
I sat on the porch and smoked.
That last sentence speaks volumes. Very poignant.
Makes me wonder…is he not welcome because he is a smoker or because the house no longer belongs in his family? Very nice story!
Deliberately ambiguous, actually. But you know he’s also drunk, so that may have something to do with it. ;-)
Okay, I didn’t catch that little detail. I should have.
Dear J. Hardy,
I think a welcome to Friday Fictioneers is in order. It sounds like he came home to a very different place. (Or should I say ‘you’?) Nicely written.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thank you! I really like this. Hope to do more in the future.
He sounds like the black sheep of the family – the charmer, the drunk.
I’m familiar with the type – but you made me see him from the inside.
Good story.