www.colincampbell.org
copyright colin w campbell
micro fiction by colin w campbell
The Deep End.
First Place, Adult Creative Writing Club Competition No. 72, 2007. Read
on Radio Sarawak, RED fm 91.9 on Wed 11 Nov 2009.
She smiled as the new guy held the taxi door open. "Come in for coffee," she said.
It would be more than coffee. She had been hurt in the past but then who hadn't and that was no reason to sit life out at the side of the pool. Even if he was a little on the old side, his Mediterranean good looks more than compensated. There was a confidence about him and old-fashioned values she found attractive. Here was a man who held doors open, who insisted on taking a taxi if he had two drinks with dinner, who paid the bill discretely with cash instead of loudly flashing the plastic. And he would be quite a trophy to show off to the pool-party girls, her wealthy and divorced friends.
It was a fine evening and they had coffee beside the pool. A gentle breeze carried in the sounds and smells of summer.
"There's a story about this pool," she said. "The kid next door turned into a wild teenager. The parents weren't always there. He started having his friends round and it was all cans of beer, loud music and showing off to the girls. And then there was a silly game. Sometimes I would have some girls I know round for a pool-party. Still do. They're coming tomorrow. You can drop in if you like. Anyway back to the story. This day the party was in full swing when these kids came crashing through the hedge between the properties. It's over there beside the deep end. And they just threw themselves into the pool."
"Doesn't sound too bad," he said. "Just kids you know."
"Well there was a lot of shouting and bad language but the thing is they took all their clothes off first. You could say it was just kids having fun but it was an invasion of privacy and we did get a fright."
"So did you think of putting in a fence or what?"
"Something happened. The next week the pool was drained but we went ahead with the pool-party anyway. We had some drinks and so on. And then the kids came charging through the bushes again and jumped into the pool. It was quite a drop. I didn't really set out to trap them but I knew it could happen and I did nothing to stop them. At first we had a good laugh and said it served them right and they wouldn't come back again next time. But one of the lads, it was the kid from next door, had a bad landing. It was his head, brain damage. The family moved away. Just as well for I was in over my depth myself without knowing it. You see it turned out the boy's father had connections with organized crime. Would you believe it?"
"Oh yes, and he asked me to give you a message."
They found her next day floating face down in the pool.
(491 words)
