Title: Charity Broke My Heart
Word: possum
Challenger: Richard Curtis
Length: 200 words exactly
I made them wait far beyond what would have been considered polite under normal circumstances, but today, I thought it deserved.
I stabbed out a hand, hitting the intercom. “Send them in,” I growled.
Three agents of my organisation walked into my office, two of them showing the expected nervousness, one of them, however, displaying an attitude more expected of a model upon a catwalk: half boredom, half contempt, an arrogant possum.
Faith spoke first, meekly offering apologies for her last mission. I just stared, and she fell silent. Agent Hope was next, contrite for the errors he himself admitted he’d made. I could admire his honesty, but not his abilities.
Agent Charity was last, she who I’d once loved. She had the audacity to claim that I was at fault, that my own inadequacies had caused the problems. And she topped it off by throwing a letter of resignation on my desk. She was leaving, she said. She’d found a different team with which to work.
The next time I saw her, she showed me precisely how much I’d meant to her. Her new colleagues, War, Famine and Death, laughed as Agent Pestilence touched my heart… and broke it.
© Lee Barnett, 2013
This is the twelfth story in The Twenty-Four Hour Fast Fiction Challenge. There will be twelve more stories… Sponsor me to complete them!
budgie's perch 