One Sentence Stories: Session One

One Sentence Stories
Participants: Mouse, MLS, Epiphany22

1. The window exploded outward as Alfredo’s forward momentum carried him through it. Shards of glass cut into his forearms and he felt the air leave his lungs in a hurry as he landed, hard, on the asphalt. With a wince and a grunt of pain he pushed himself to his feet. The figure of his pursuer paused, back-lit by the spastic, fluttering orange light provided by the naked bulb inside, which seemed to give more substance to his body, rather than less. Alfredo scrambled to his feet, wheezing, turning back to face the man on the other side of the broken window.

“Still not ready to give it up, then?” the silhouetted man inquired and though Alfredo couldn’t see the man’s face, a lazily raised eyebrow and curled lip were implied in his voice. Alfredo licked his bloodied lips and stared in frozen silence, stuck somewhere between denying everything and bolting without a word. The man waited a moment, and in that moment the only sound either could hear was the traffic in the distance.
“N-” Alfredo began, but broke off as a siren wailed down a nearby side street. The sound triggered his flight instinct, and he tore off down the alley in the opposite direction.



2. The air still tasted of late summer despite the distinctly fall chill in the air. Nearly time for harvest, Gloria thinks, surveying the little bit of world before her. The trees have not yet lost their leaves, but the moist smell of decay and dew lingers in her nose. A soft sigh escapes her lips. Folding her arms across her chest she steps off of her rickety porch to fetch the post. Idly, she flips through the mail: a bill, a letter to Mama from her cousin in Kansas, and, strangely enough, a small violet envelope addressed to her from a man she had never met.She frowns slightly, chewing on her lower lip as she is wont to do whenever something puzzles her. Gloria stands beside the beaten up mailbox for five whole minutes before shrugging slightly and tearing the envelope open.

“To Miss Gloria Haessenhoffen,” it began, cordial simplicity contradicting the scrawling handwriting and gold ink.
“What’s that you got there, darlin’?” a familiar male drawl asks from beside her.



3. When I next open my eyes it is sunrise and I, disheveled and bleary-eyed, find that I am face down in a patch of soft spring grass. It is not the first time that this has happened, or at least, it feels familiar in a distant way that gets less clear the more I try to focus on it. I sit up slowly, the grass leaving a layer of sticky resin behind on my palms, and take in my surroundings little by little. Little by little the hazy shapes of tree trunks, slender, tall, and bathed in the new golden-pink light of day, come into focus.  I stand on shaky legs, like a fawn standing for the first time, and make weak, halting steps toward the nearest silver-barked birch. When I reach it I run my fingers over its rough surface, my touch questing for the carvings I know will be there.
My vision blurs again as my fingertips fall into the grooves and I fall to my knees before the birch; I’ve made it back. I stoop and drive my fingers into the dirt, clawing weak, ineffective holes into the earth.And just like that I’m overwhelmed, resting my head against the tree, trying to slow my frantic thoughts, my frantic heartbeat, my frantic feelings. It has to be here, it has to be.