Lucid Waking

Archive for June 7th, 2010

Last Mission

        She didn’t hate anything more than she hated him. She hated that he insist they meet at his swimming pool where he often spent a sunny summer day resting in the sun. She knew that he did this to throw her off track because, no matter his age, he was young, well-built and generally attractive. He was arrogant, selfish, and sophisticated, too, which didn’t add up to much in her book—though sophistication was never a bad thing.
        “Samantha,” he said when she had arrived at their pool-side rendezvous, “Why are you late?”
        “Traffic was pretty bad near downtown and—”
        “Samantha,” he said more forcefully.
        “I’m sorry, sir.”
        “You’re hanging by a limb all ready. If I were you I wouldn’t be late to something as important as this.”
        “I’m sorry, sir.”
        “Since you’ve gotten such glowing recommendations from the other team members you were with on this last mission, I’ll give you another chance. Find the central enemy base and report back to Washington. Do not infiltrate, do not adopt vigilantism, do I make myself clear?”
        “Perfectly.”
        “All right. We’re done.”
        She promptly turned on her heel and left. There was no way she was staying longer than she could help it.
        He waited for her to go before picking up the rotary phone lying on the table by his chair.
        “Well, she accepted the challenge. Now we just have to wait for her to get caught…Yes, I know this is risky, but she’ll either find it or get caught by the other side…Of course she hasn’t caught on that this is most likely a suicide mission…Well you should have thought of that before you tried saving her from that royal screw-up she made last week…Since you’re my best man, I’ll ignore that remark…Yes, that’s all.”
        He hung up the phone with a smirk.

Author’s comments on post 387: At the end, she succeeds and keeps her job and her life. FYI. I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish, except to write something short and precise. I’ve been working on some longer stories to try to practice "show, don’t tell." For short shorts, that doesn’t work. Hopefully you still get a sketch of the characters.