Hey guys! I thought I’d do something a bit different for today to keep things interesting! If you’ve been following me for a while (thank you!), you know I like to do short stories for y’all to read. However, I’ve never really shown much of my other writing. Y’all got a snippet of a scene from one of my WIP back in December, but that’s pretty much it if I remember correctly. I thought it would be nice if I shared something that I’ve been attempting to get published, perhaps even to get some feedback for it.
A while back I started doing this story that was set in the modern world and I had a lot of fun doing it! I don’t know if I’ll ever post the whole thing on here, but I thought I’d at least show you an excerpt of it. To set things up, I actually wrote this particular scene, titled Phones, for my creative writing class back in spring of 2022. We were going over flash fiction and we had to write something with a maximum of 300 words. I had a lot of fun with it, so once the class was over I made it a little longer and I’ve been attempting to get in published in a flash fiction magazine. So far I’ve had no luck, but I just wanted to share this with y’all and perhaps see what y’all think of it!
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The cop opens the door to the booth, and I stand there staring at my mother on the other side of the glass partition in front of me. The wrinkles around her eyes are more pronounced, the way they look when she hasn’t slept. There’s more gray in her hair than I remember.
My mother, slack-jawed, stares back with wide eyes, taking in my orange uniform and the bruise under my left eye. She picks up the phone and the cop nudges me forward, but I suddenly don’t want to talk to her anymore. Still, I sit and pick up the phone, holding it to my ear with a sweaty hand. My mouth runs dry. We just stare at each other.
Finally she says, “I raised you better than this.”
I keep staring. My heart is pounding.
“Drugs, Arjun?” She says it like it’s a dirty word. “Resisting arrest?!”
I just shrug. I wonder what she must think of me now, finding out her perfect son got in with the wrong crowd. But I stop myself because I can’t afford to think about how much disappointment she must feel when she looks at me.
She keeps talking, but now the little light on the ceiling is glinting off of her eyes. I can’t stand it when she cries. “What did I do wrong?” she moans. “What did I do?”
“It wasn’t you,” I said, clutching the phone that much harder. But she doesn’t believe me. I know she doesn’t, because somehow, it’s always her fault whenever I cause trouble.
We discuss the trial. It’ll be next week. We can’t afford an attorney, but I was told they would provide one for us. I face going to prison. We both know I won’t win this one. Not with all that’s on my record. Things from the past my mother probably doesn’t even know about.
“Why did you do it?” she asks when we only have less than a minute left. I can sense the cop’s agitation behind me, where he shifts against the door.
Again, I shrug. I don’t want to tell her what the dealers said to me. That I’d find her dead body if I didn’t do as I was told. Just picturing the image they put in my head steals my breath away.
Our time ends. She tells me she loves me, but puts the phone down before I can respond. I watch her leave before putting my phone down, too, and I let the cop take me away.
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So there you have it! As I mentioned, I did this for my creative writing class, but I used characters from my story I had been writing around that time. Again, I don’t know if I’ll be sharing that on here as an actual short story, but I’ve certainly thought about it. Anyway, let me know what you think of this little excerpt in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you!
As always, God bless y’all and have a wonderful week!
I'd Rather Be Geeking! 