By Jon Nixon
A gloriously incandescent, tarmac-melting afternoon welcomed him.
Unsurprisingly he arrived punctually, heralded on this occasion by a peculiar call to action, the chiming fanfare of the ice-cream truck.
But its tinny jingle had stopped abruptly, chaos ensuing.
Stepping over the tangle of bicycles and drifting silently between the shrieks of the children, he stopped for a second and sighed, surveying an old but familiar scene.
Reaching for his worn clipboard, he jotted down details, crossing off little Bobby’s name from the list.
It had been a while since he had dodged raspberry sauce and chocolate sprinkles to take one so young.
A life and death story, with Death winning, as usual. Nice job.
Thanks for reading!
Wow. Very dark.
Yes, I wasn’t sure if it was too dark.
Speaks volumes without over-writing–fine job. Tiny cavils: do you really need “gloriously,” “unsurprisingly,” and “silently”?
Thanks for reading and the feedback 🙂
Funny you mention it, but ‘silently’ was the only one of those three that was in the original draft, from what was originally a fifty word story.