Example of Short Fictional Writing

Desperation

            I crouch down onto the damp cement floor, sponge in hand. I don’t particularly care for the sight of blood. But somehow the solution that the boss created makes it a little more grotesque and easier to look at all at the same time. At the same time, I suppose it works the same way snake venom does. Congealing the blood into some gross ass kind of blood jelly. At least it makes it easier to scrape up. Though I don’t care to know whether he’s actually capturing snakes and milking them for their venom, though it would not surprise me.

            The familiar slow creak of the steps down into the cellar alert me to be on edge. I’m all too aware of who’s coming down the steps, I do not care to converse with them, not right now anyways. Sir, as I have been instructed to call him, is a rather short and tidy man, he clearly tries to make up for it by meticulously maintaining a van dyke style facial hair though it just makes him look like a tan Shakespeare. He is somewhere in his mid-thirties though he’s had an extremely lucrative career. Sir’s real name is known to me, it’s known to a great many people. Sir is a high-profile lawyer who worked on a controversial national case.  Though I’ve taken to calling him Sir even in my head as to not slip up when I am speaking directly to him. It is my hope to one day build a career as successful as his. But that goal’s feeling further and further each day. After having been fired from my dream job, I found employment with Sir. The air in the room seemed to be stiffen when he entered the room. His snake like presence was completely different from the warm and caring persona he kept in his television appearances, I began to wonder if the solution wasn’t his own spit bottled up. 

            “Jesus Christ! The dammed floor’s stickier than a movie theater’s floor

 after some fat kids gone and dropped their cola. If I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed you were fired from your job for incompetence.” He says. I won’t bother responding this is the usual extent of our conversation. Rather I’ll just glare at him to let him know I hear but am unwilling to play this game. “What is it Worm, don’t stare at me like I’m that girl in your office. It’s not my fault you can’t keep it in your damned pants.” He grinned probably feeling satisfied with what he thinks is witty banter. I’d lost my job as a writer on a late-night comedy show because I was falsely accused of sexual harassment. I had entered a legitimate relationship with my co-worker, but it was against office rules. So when another co-worker saw us in the office and mistook my actions towards her to be aggressive and unwarranted, she was quick to throw me under the bus.  So not only did I lose my job, but my girlfriend too and Sir thinks it’s funnier than any joke I’ve ever written.

 I go on pushing the residual goo around. Every now and then getting a whiff of what was blood. Sir sits in the wooden chair in the corner. I was expecting him to leave after checking in on me. But he sits with chef’s roll in hand. The longest knife’s tip poked out over the black cloth, the way a shark’s fin peeks out over the waves. It has crossed my mind that one day I might end up strapped on to the stainless-steel table in the middle of the room. It is riddled with holes to allow the blood and fluids to drain.

A hollow thudding is coming from the stairs. “What was that?” I ask. Sir looks down at me and resumed his fiddling with the chef’s roll. I walk over to the stairwell and peer up. An older man with his hands and feet tied and mouth gagged was struggling to pull himself up the stairs. Sir had never brought home a new victim while I was working on cleaning up the last one. “While You’ve never been here during a killing, I suspect that you understand not to talk, touch, or look at them.” He says. I turn and go back to cleaning the floor. Sir stood and placed the knives down on the seat. He walks slowly over to and up the stairs, each step seemed to creak louder as he went up. I can only imagine what is running through the man on the stair’s mind. Louder thuds come from the stairwell. Sir dragging the man by his legs. As they come down each step the man’s head slams back down. The rhythmic thudding sounds similar to when a ball rolls down the steps after being tossed. Despite Sir’s short stature, he easily slings the man over his shoulders and slams him down onto the table. He straps his arms and legs tightly down.

Sir then turns away from the table. “Worm, I’m going upstairs to do a consultation call before proceeding with my business down here. Finish up cleaning the room, wait for me to come back before you leave, I’ll bring your check with me.”

Once the clack sound from the door closing alerted the man on the table of the absence of Sir he began to thrash about. I’d better continue cleaning. But what if he flips the table. “Will Sir be mad if this guy renders himself unconscious or if he breaks something, and I do nothing to stop him?”  I walk over to the table lean over and look him dead in the eyes. He stops moving around. Aw shit, I know I really shouldn’t, if I lose this job I’m fucked. Man, oh man what to do. I always avoided scary things, my dad wanted me to be a child phycologist, but I was too scared I’d get some psycho kid who chopped their parents up but look where I am now. Though my parents always instilled a sense of justice in me, my mom wanted me to be a cop. All I ever really wanted was to help people. “Aw fuck it! How can I ignore a guy who’s probably about to get chopped up by one of those psycho kids turned adult?” I say, tearing off the tape covering his mouth, and pulling out the sock stuffed in his mouth. Curiosity had gotten the better of me.

“Help!” I could see the desperation in his eyes. I wish I could actually help him, but at the same time I know he’s done something real bad to get into this situation. “Hey, don’t just fucking stand there. Didn’t you see that crazy bastard drag me down here.” His eyes where angry a fiery fierceness was behind them. “Please man. Come on I can Pay you once we get out of here. I’ll pay you way more than Donahue could ever afford to shove out.” His eyes were now watery less focused, he was desperate.

“Please don’t say his name,” I say. Tears are now dribbling down the side of his face into his ears. The small trickle looks as rain does on a passenger window when you’re going fast down the highway. “Despite your offer this is my best option.” His eyes hurry back and forth scanning the room, clearly confused by what I just said. I was so focused on him that he must have been sure I’d thought of helping him, but my goal in being here is far greater than my want to see true justice.

“Look man, I can literally make it, so you never have to work a day in your life.” That was the thing, though. Just as he was desperate, I was too. All I ever wanted was to make a name for myself, make my parents proud. Though right now I don’t know what would make them more proud. I messed up and got myself into this kind of fucked up situation, and now Sir’s my only way out.

The door squeaked open. Sir’s feet were upon those dilapidated wooden stairs. I quickly gathered up the cloth that had been in the man’s mouth, and tried to stuff it back in, but it was too late. “Help, Help!” He was so desperate that he didn’t realize that anyone who would be coming down the stairs at this moment wouldn’t be someone who would care to help him. Sir has already reached the bottom step.

“The Fuck, Worm! Didn’t I say not to even look at this piece of shit! Whatever, you had to know I was watching the whole time.” He was pointing to the camera in the corner of the room. “At least your dumb ass didn’t try to run off with him. It is truly unbelievable that you were fired for something other than your utter lack of intelligence.” I’m beginning to wonder if a job is worth being treated like this.

“You know I was well respected in my field.” Sir was holding back his laughter.

“Damn, Worm that might be the funniest shit you’ve ever said. You might wanna write that one down.” Sir was laughing now he enjoyed this kind of conversation having the upper hand enables him to do what he wants, it’s a shame he seems to always have it. I’ve heard him on the phone with other lawyers in his firm at the slightest stumble he’s quick to attack. Had he actually been a snake, surly he’d never miss an opportunity to strike his prey. He’d be fat from the ease at which he could kill. Sir had now crossed over to the table that the man had now once again began to thrash around on.

“Hey Donahue, if you let me go I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll never talk neither’.” The cellar has a strong stench of ammonia, but now all I can smell is sweat. Despite it being a cellar, it was rather warm in the room. Sir had liked to keep the house above 70 at all times. Perhaps he truly was a cold-blooded snake after all.

“You can shut your mouth now, I’m having a conversation with your hopeful hero.” Sir turned his eyes towards me. “Worm you have a choice to make here, and gosh I sure hope you make the right one. Though I’m gonna come out on top no matter what.” Sir paused as if he was considering the choices himself. “I’m in a good mood today, and honestly I think you’ll turn which ever choice you make into a punishment for yourself anyway. So You can help our friend here and I won’t interfere. Though knowing you, you’ll beat yourself up knowing you helped a murderess scum like him escape, or you can go about your usual day go upstairs and collect your pay check and sometime next week I’ll make a call to my friend over at that shitty television network and get you a job on that dumbass comic Jimmy Stewarts show. But then you have to live with our friend’s blood on your hands. You can pipe up whenever you’re ready I know it takes that big brain of yours a while to push one thought out. Sir crosses back over to the chair and picks the chef roll up.

I pick up the sponge throw it in the bucket and stash it under the sink in the corner. I walk over to the stairs and make the decision to collect my paycheck and hopefully I will find myself in the hands of a better employer within the next week.

Sir swore me to secrecy before he made the call. Of course, I wasn’t gonna talk after all that time. And surly enough that very week I was called by the Jimmy Stewarts’s head writer and promptly hired. I wrote a few Rear Window and vertigo jokes that made the Friday show, and the rest of the writers stopped the office rumors about my previous job and my having been black listed.