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Oct. 24th, 2007 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bookish_dragonWriting exercise for 23rd October.
There I was, just standing there, when what I wanted to do was forbidden. I kicked at the floor. Being a kid was a bore. I’d wanted to go out to the cinema, but my parents’d told me to stay in until they came from their dinner. They’d gone to some posh restaurant and I wasn’t allowed to go with them, because they were afraid I’d misbehave. I walked back to the couch and looked at the movie-schedule in the paper. I really wanted to see the big monster-movie that was playing. A look at the clock convinced that I could make it there and be back before my parents came home. Making sure I had the house keys with me, I left the house and got my bike out of the garage. The cinema was nowhere near the restaurant my parents were, anyway.
He was skating on thin ice, that’s all I can say. The winter hadn’t been cold enough to put much of a solid layer of ice on the canal. Here and there you could see spills of water lying on the frosted surface. Not good news. The man didn’t seem to care. He was skating firmly along. As best he could, that is. Water splattered into the air whenever he crossed a puddle, and I found myself watching him move. He was an idiot, even I knew that and I had never been much of an ice-skater. But he did move well. Very well.
The day Sheila brought Hillary to my office I found myself thinking back to that day. It wasn’t often that that happened. Certainly I’d never told anyone about what happened, then. Like I said, the ice was thin, too water-logged even. Despite his grace the man was clearly an idiot, who loved skating too much to bother about safety. In between interviewing Hillary for the position of my personal assistant my thoughts kept slipping back to that man. Something in the way she moved, reminded me of him. The gracefulness in him, the cracking of the ice. Eventually it gave way under his feet, and he splashed into the water. It quickly became apparent that he couldn’t swim, and even if he could, his clothes were hindering him. He sank, once, twice. The third time it looked like he would be able to get back on the remaining ice, to get himself to safety. His grip slipped, and he sank back into the water. He didn’t resurface.
I turned my bike around and went home. I’d go to the cinema another time.
There I was, just standing there, when what I wanted to do was forbidden. I kicked at the floor. Being a kid was a bore. I’d wanted to go out to the cinema, but my parents’d told me to stay in until they came from their dinner. They’d gone to some posh restaurant and I wasn’t allowed to go with them, because they were afraid I’d misbehave. I walked back to the couch and looked at the movie-schedule in the paper. I really wanted to see the big monster-movie that was playing. A look at the clock convinced that I could make it there and be back before my parents came home. Making sure I had the house keys with me, I left the house and got my bike out of the garage. The cinema was nowhere near the restaurant my parents were, anyway.
He was skating on thin ice, that’s all I can say. The winter hadn’t been cold enough to put much of a solid layer of ice on the canal. Here and there you could see spills of water lying on the frosted surface. Not good news. The man didn’t seem to care. He was skating firmly along. As best he could, that is. Water splattered into the air whenever he crossed a puddle, and I found myself watching him move. He was an idiot, even I knew that and I had never been much of an ice-skater. But he did move well. Very well.
The day Sheila brought Hillary to my office I found myself thinking back to that day. It wasn’t often that that happened. Certainly I’d never told anyone about what happened, then. Like I said, the ice was thin, too water-logged even. Despite his grace the man was clearly an idiot, who loved skating too much to bother about safety. In between interviewing Hillary for the position of my personal assistant my thoughts kept slipping back to that man. Something in the way she moved, reminded me of him. The gracefulness in him, the cracking of the ice. Eventually it gave way under his feet, and he splashed into the water. It quickly became apparent that he couldn’t swim, and even if he could, his clothes were hindering him. He sank, once, twice. The third time it looked like he would be able to get back on the remaining ice, to get himself to safety. His grip slipped, and he sank back into the water. He didn’t resurface.
I turned my bike around and went home. I’d go to the cinema another time.
