The doors slid opened. The short, sturdy woman walked in again, this time with a bundle of papers under her arm. She snapped her fingers and one of the guards brought her a wooden half-rickety chair. She shooed him away and placed the chair in front of the prisoner.
She studied him, brought a pack of cigarettes out of a pocket, took one out, tapped it on the stack of papers on her lap.
“Who are you?” the prisoner asked. “Why am I here?”
She was about to light her smoke when she paused and eyed him from over the flame. She took a long drag, blew it out and smiled at him. “Before we start, you should know you’ve already been here before, already had this conversation several times in the past, or in the future – depends on how you see it – and it didn’t go so well for either of us back then.” She shook the ash. “What story will you tell me this time?”
It’s interesting to me how curious I become just by the word “again” in the 2nd sentence. Then, as the story continues, this becomes the central element. (I know this is supposed to be a prompt for my own writing, but I’m too busy admiring it. 🙂 )
Thanks, Ellen. I thought it’d be interesting. Certainly leaves a lot of space for all sorts of possible scenarios.