Runaways – Drabble (Inspiration Monday II)

16 Replies

I ignored the raised eyebrow of the checkout girl.
“Johnny Randall Everett,” she said real deliberate, “where did you get money to buy all this?”
“Aw, c’mon, Sarah. Why you have to ask me that?” I said all innocent. “I won at the scratch cards.”
“That you bought where?”
I fumbled.
“Lissen here,” I hissed, feeling lucky we alone in the store. “I know I treated you real bad before. But run away with me. Now!”
She looked at me a long time then smiled.
“No, Johnny. You run alone. That money ain’t going to make you a better person.”

Thanks to Be Kind Rewrite for the prompt. Be sure to visit her blog!

16 thoughts on “Runaways – Drabble (Inspiration Monday II)”

  2. Pingback: Inspiration Monday III « Be Kind Rewrite

  4. kolembo

    Caught me un-awares there…coffee all over the keyboard. Straight out, splat, very funny your skewer of yourselves..of us…ah…Africans eh? Nevermind, when we get it right they won’t know what hittem! Can you imagine it?

    I’ll be with you shortly…I have a crew over from Norway and they’re biting into my time.

    Reply ↓
  5. screen_scribbla Post author

    Hi Kenny – thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Your dialogue will work out fine. You worry too much.

    Yeah, Windhoek. Land of the brave and rich. We have professional photographers, actors and photoshop experts creating scenes of poverty and destitution so that the rest of the world can feel sorry for us and donate pity dollars. But behind it all we are having one great big orgy each day and night.
    I don’t know about renegotiating. I hear spare body parts are not too hard to come by during elections up there. Still, will peruse catalogue and let my people get back to yours.

    And please don’t come over – you may find out that I am the figment of someone’s imagination.

    Reply ↓
  6. kolembo

    All right! It’s excellent! Nothing wrong with it at all! I love the last line, I love the open-bracket feel of the whole piece, the they-know-each-other-but-how nature of the relationship.

    You write dialogue well!

    Got my thing up – so I’ll be joining you soon, and I’m looking forward to it, though my dialogue is…well.

    By the way, Namibia eh? I hear Windhoek is beautiful, expensive and you’re all rich. So I’m renegotiating the contract; bodily spare parts, a grand starting (catalogue heading your way), paragraphs, tenfidy a word.

    Don’t make me come over there.

    Reply ↓
  8. Mike

    Great story.
    I got a clear picture of the two characters – him chancing his arm & hoping the money might impress her. While she was the sensible one who saw the real him.

    Reply ↓
  10. sparrowsong

    I love how the wording in the prose matches the dialect in the dialogue. This has real character. 🙂

    Reply ↓
    1. screen_scribbla Post author

      Mark Twain introduced me to this through his books when I was a kid. Those voices have stuck ever since. Thanks for reading and commenting.

      Reply ↓

Leave a comment