SHORT STORY: THE CHAIR
Inspired by the writing prompt: ‘The chair in the woods’ from West Algarve Writers Group, Portugal
At the end of this short tale, I share writing tips I applied to stretch my writing habits out of their comfort zone.
A brilliant orange sky threw the shadowy horizon of familiar trees — Eucalyptus, fir, olive — into stark relief as the dawn awoke bird’s song. John inhaled everything he could. His reddened face, his silver curling hair, his fine features held the morning’s light. Blue eyes dazzled out from underneath greying lashes as he drank in the morning. He hardly resembled retirement age, yet that’s what this day was: a significant transition from working age to other.
‘You beauty,’ he said as the orange sky softened to melba with washes of pale watercolour blue. A hammock was slung over his shoulder. On his tool belt, a hacksaw and hammer. In his pockets, four sturdy metal nails stuck their noses into the soft flesh of his upper thigh as they jutted through the thin pocket lining of his shorts. ‘Let’s be having you, then.’
White trainers catching the dew, he crossed the manicured garden and stepped into the thicket of trees that clustered in the no-man's-land marking the boundary line between his neighbour’s place and his own. The light darkened to shadows…
