Final Hour
This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity is the word hour. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. This time, instead of a poem or a brief prose musing, I've written a short story. I find it more interesting to explore different forms, just as I enjoy seeing the different angles each contributor approaches the word from.
Final Hour
A short, sharp knock, the sound I’ve been expecting - and dreading - for months now.
A guard thrusts open the door, not waiting for my reply. “You have an hour to prepare.”
My goodbyes have already been said. If God has rejected my earlier pleas, all I can do now is accept His decision. I pick up my pen. So many ideas, so many observations jostling to escape before darkness erases them. Their loss seems sadder even than my own. Which shall I save? My pen wavers in midair.
Another knock, and the guards come in. How brief an hour is!
A short, sharp knock, the sound I’ve been expecting - and dreading - for months now.
A guard thrusts open the door, not waiting for my reply. “You have an hour to prepare.”
My goodbyes have already been said. If God has rejected my earlier pleas, all I can do now is accept His decision. I pick up my pen. So many ideas, so many observations jostling to escape before darkness erases them. Their loss seems sadder even than my own. Which shall I save? My pen wavers in midair.
Another knock, and the guards come in. How brief an hour is!
Labels: challenge, fiction, Velvet Verbosity
posted by The Wandering Author | Permalink: 1:32 AM
4 Comments:
Just a little note for the curious. This was in a sense an expression of frustration at not having managed much writing lately. And, yes, if I were ever awaiting execution, the only thing I'd regret more than the ideas that were never written down would be leaving my cats. Odd, I know, but there it is.
Hi there. I quite like this. It paints quite the intense picture even though it isn't very long.
Nicely done.
Interesting way to spend a last hour. I don't know that I'd do it with pen in hand; I swear, my best writing happens in my brain.
Very intense.
And for just 100 words it conveys a tremendous amount. Sometimes, word economy does so much more than verbosity. When you have to get it right it's harder to hide.
With 1,000 words available you can go all around the emotional houses, but cut that down to 100 words and you have to get to the meat directly.
And pardon my mixed metaphors!
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