A Harrowing Evening

This is the first draft of a short story I'm starting to write as a result of a Course in Writing Fiction I'm currently working on. There is still much to work on and more details and editing need to be given but I wanted to give it away anyway. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

"I dragged her as if I were carrying a chair around" the TV news anchor reported from interviewing HIM.

Those words resonated in my mind for hours. Awful images popping in my head. The utter horror of it all. The desperate screaming for help. The excrutiating anguish - but, most importantly - the bitter feeling of complete paralysis not knowing what to do next. It was him - a middle.aged man with a hoarse voice - and me - a woman in her thirties, struggling to survive. I remember that dreadful evening very vividly now.

It was late. I was coming back from work feeling knackered. I took the subway, as I always did at that time, and managed to sit for the whole journey home. What followed next changed my life completely... forever.

I got off the train and was heading towards the escalator when I suddenly felt someone grabbing my bag from behind. I froze... five seconds. It only took him five endless seconds to pull me down and drag me to a dark alley. I finally came to. I shouted. I kicked. I punched. Nothing. No use. He was in charge. He grabbed my wrists and tied me to a lamp post. I couldn't find strength within me anymore.  

"This is it", I thought. "This is how I'm going to go".

Feeling helpless and with nothing else to hope for, I gave in...


WAIT. HOLD ON. HELP IS ON THE WAY. Whispers everywhere. HOPE. Life was filling my bones again.

A month latet - while still in shock - I can honestly say: PEOPLE STILL CARE. HUMANITY IS NOT LOST TO VIOLENCE, NOT LOST TO CRUELTY, NOT LOST TO HATE.

The writer, the speaker and the giver of ideas

The following is an incomplete first draft for a short story derived from many teaching workshops two colleagues and I attended a few years ago. I wrote it a couple of years ago as a result of an inside joke the three of us used to share. 

It was a hot Friday afternoon in November. A group of English teachers were gathering to discuss the latest trends in Education and how to bring technology into the classroom.

Patty, Connie and Charlotte were not only great colleagues but also good friends. They went to all meetings together, sat in all meetings together and left all meetings together. They were well-organised and ellaborated about every little topic they were given. They had specific roles in each meeting without even thinking beforehand what each one of them would do or how they would participate. They managed to keep the same tasks every time they attended the workshops.

Connie, the writer, was the one who always brought a notebook with a pen and jotted down everything the lecturer explained; Charlotte, the speaker, always willing to express loud and clear what they had been discussing earlier in the assignment; and, finally, Patty, the one who had the right thing to say and knew exactly how to say it and when to do so. 

They worked at the same school with different age groups sharing both passion for teaching as well as disdain for misbehaving children.