Friday 31 May 2013

A bug in a bucket

Not really, but I thought it sounded nice. I was on the roof today, and because I'm a bit of a forgetful idiot, I left my mp3 player at home. Bugger. On the other side, I brought my Kindle (which I didn't even take out of my bag) and my notebook and a pen with me. Well, two pens, none of them really working. One gave up the ghost after only three sentences and the other one was a pain in the arse to write with.
But hey, I had a scene banging around my head and needed to write it down. And here it is, freshly typed, already altered since I couldn't decipher my own handwriting, yet unsurprisingly unedited:

They stared at each other in silence. Letisha swallowed hard, considering her options: a quick dash for the door? No, she wouldn't get past it.
Shout for help? Quite possibly attracting more of them. Her eyes flickered for a second across the 16sqm office, over the two joined desks in the middle of the room, the sideboards and boxes cluttering up the minuscule space, and fake ficus tree in the corner, right next to it. No, there was no way out; she was trapped, alone with that monster.
Now what? It was next to impossible to keep calm, yet she tried. Rumours had it that those aliens had dog-like senses and could smell fear from miles away. If that was the case, Letisha knew, she'd only seconds to live. Despite her not being religious, she thought an urgent prayer, hoping she somehow might get away.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze; the alien hadn't moved, its eyes still on her. But why didn't it attack? Rumours also had it that they'd charge immediately. Letisha remained still, despite her heart pumping so loudly in her ears, she almost felt dizzy. Without her wanting to, she released a shuddering sigh before her hand flew to her mouth as if to muffle the sound.
In that moment, as if a light had been switched on, moonlight fell onto the creature's face, revealing turquoise eyes and a face that couldn't be described other than handsome. He was one of the rare males, only to be recognised by a slightly larger forehead. He cocked his head and … smiled?
Alarmed, Letisha stiffened.
Was he smiling at the prospect of killing her? Fear spread through her every fiber of her body and she swallowed again. Why the heck did she have to stay late?
I'm so stupid; I could have an amusing dinner with Liam and Steph; Instead I'll be …
'Don't be scared; I mean no harm.'
Did he just …? She'd heard about them speaking very good English. This man's tongue was not any different to those who grew up in England. She'd never encountered one of the aliens before. Or maybe she had and didn't notice. Apparently many of them wore knitted hats or caps, so one couldn't distinguish them from the native humans.
'Please, I need your help,' he said.
His voice was surprisingly pleasant and low and since he didn't make any attempts to charge for her, she relaxed for the first time in minutes.

That's it. I also jotted down a very weird dream that has me suspecting my being abducted last night. Which may or may not be the reason for my high intake of sugars today. Because:

The bucket
on my way back, I stopped at Lidl to buy milk and, because you never get decent wafers here, particularly not chocolate coated, I also bought one of those. Yeah, probably a good thing that I'm going to boxing tomorrow. 

No comments:

Post a Comment