The Laptop Bag
“Jay had run, darting down the side street past the bins and ended up on the main road where the buses lined up. Mercifully, there was a bus at the stop about to close its doors and he had leapt onboard, slumping into the seat next to the back doors in case he needed to move again. Three triangle torsoed men, all in grey suits and suffering from an excess of neck, tumbled out of the side street where Jay had been moments earlier, looking around frantically. Jay had slouched further into his seat and pulled his hat down as the bus ambled away.
Jay’s great escape was reminiscent of Indiana Jones, although his hat had remained firmly on his head the whole time. Once he was safe and the bus was meandering through various suburb streets, he took a chance to check the contents of his boon.
That was when everything changed.”
This story was written as a submission to a website short story competition. It had the following description:
Create a fiction story about someone who unexpectedly comes into $20,000. Whether it involves a mysterious inheritance, a lotto win, or random circumstance, the details are entirely up to you—the only requirement is that at some point in your narrative, whether it’s a major plot point or a minor detail, your story must include a small black notebook.
I ended up drafting the story in time but, after looking into the competition, decided not to go ahead but it was a good way to get me back into writing after an absence.
