Friday Flash Fiction: Cliche
It’s that time of the week again:
Cliché
By Neil Beynon
“I don’t want it,” said the woman handing the box back to the man. He looked crestfallen taking the intricately carved cube in his large ponderous hands. The woman smiled gently at him as you would a child who had just learnt their first unpleasant truth about the world.
“It would never work,” she explained. “I’m just not like that.”
“But I meant it,” he said. “It’s meant to be you.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. You’re young, you’ll learn. Life is not that clichéd.”
She turned and walked away from him, her stiletto heels clipping on the concrete pavement as she did. He flipped over the lid and gazed on the contents with watery blue eyes.
“I meant it,” he said quietly, then louder. “I meant it.”
She turned back briefly, she did not smile and after a brief glance she was walking again. He closed the box that held his heart and locked it before dropping it into his bag.
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What an emotive scene you’ve painted in just a few words! Is this an unofficiel sequel to GLP’s Thai Curry?
Thanks Gareth. Yes GLP’s Thai Curry was definitely an influence as was a Gaiman short that unfortunately I can’t remember the name for right now.
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“Emotive” is the right word; this vignette is simultaneously both tragic and sweet, and out of just a few lines of dialogue you’ve drawn two distinct characters (quite a challenge in flash, in my experience).
Neil, well done. I think that’s your best one yet.
Thanks Martin
Very good – atmosphere, character, pathos… all that in so few words. Fantastic.
Wow. Thanks Gareth.
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