In our writing course last week we were asked to give our tutor 10 names, any names, famous or unknown. From those names we had to choose two and right them down. Once we had done that we were told that we had to write a short story about those two characters for homework.
I sat in my chill-out room, listening to Huw Stephens on the radio, and wrote for two hours. I started and finished my short story within that time, printed it off and didn’t read it again until tonight in class. It’s a first draft, not a finished piece but that is how we are told to write.
So, enjoy the first draft. Oh, and if you can think of a title let me know. I’m useless at titles!
***
Neither Flash Gordon or Audrey Hepburn were given their names at birth. Audrey, formally Emma Bates, was obsessed with her namesake and changed her name by deed pole, to her parents disgust, roughly 18 months ago. Flash, formally Finn Gordon, had adopted the name change when Adam, his lead guitarist, suggested it one drunken night in New York. The whole band fell about in hysterics as the conversation continued but once sober Finn and his boys thought it would give him an air of mystery and strength. It would be good for their image.
Whether the aliases were the reason these two were drawn to each other no-one knows. To look at them you would think they had nothing in common. Audrey with her black wiggle dress, pearls, and handbag draped over her forearm was highly polished and quite stunning. Flash, on the other hand, wore tight ripped jeans, a t-shirt that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in months and had his long bleached hair back-combed and hair sprayed as big as he could get it.
Flash and Audrey had been travelling with the band for several months now and had ended up at a dingy motel just on the outskirts of Seattle. It seemed a million miles away from Audrey’s life back in England but she was so glad she had met Flash and that he’d rescued her from a life of working as a secretary and marrying the man her parents approved of. For that she’d be forever grateful.
Despite the ever-growing Grunge scene at the Gorilla Gardens, the gig had gone well that night and they’d all stayed there late drinking and taking whatever they got offered by the other bands. Sometime around 3am they stumbled into the van that had seen them safely across thousands of miles of America and carried on partying at their temporary home.
Flash squeezed his eyes open and waited for the hangover to hit his body but nothing came. In fact, he felt nothing, almost numbness but not any numbness he’d felt before. He managed to push himself up to sitting position and he looked around the room. From his viewpoint he realised he must have fallen asleep on the floor. It must have been a good night! Then he noticed her, Audrey, yelling at some guy in uniform stood in the middle of the room. Both of them were gesturing at something he couldn’t quite see and Audrey had trails of mascara running down her cheeks.
Flash leapt up and rushed over to where they were standing and instantly saw the scene. There was a gunshot wound right through the side of his head, right there in front of him. The poor bastard was dead, the poor bastard that seemed to have his boots on. And his jeans, and had the same hair, and was wearing the silver engraved ring Audrey had bought him. The realisation of who it was slammed into his brain so suddenly that he felt he was going to throw up. He doubled up and waited for the contents of his stomach to appear but of course nothing happened, he was dead.
What the hell had happened? The last thing he remembered was being happy, enjoying being with his best friends, being with his girl. What had gone wrong? Just as he was trying to recall the sequence of events, two paramedics crashed through the door and interrupted his thoughts. They calmly moved Audrey and the cop out of the way and lifted Flash’s body on to the waiting gurney. Audrey asked if she could go with him in the ambulance and reluctantly the taller of the two paramedics agreed. Flash ran to the door and yelled at his girlfriend, “What are you doing? Where the hell are you going? You need to tell me what the fuck is going on!” but she didn’t hear him. She didn’t even register that he was there.
The taller paramedic gave Audrey a helping hand into the back of the ambulance and Flash quickly jumped in behind them before the doors shut. He sat opposite the two living beings and stared. His mind drifted back to hours of the early morning. They were drinking, they had bought lots of beer at the local five and dime and Adam was smoking something potent. Then it flashed through his mind, he remembered Adam and Audrey arguing just outside of the motel room door. It had been heated and Adam had grabbed her arm. She squirmed from his grasp and looked at him like there was more to this argument than just a one-off. What had they been talking about? What was going on between them?
The ambulance jolted as it went through a pothole and Flash came back to the here and now. He was still staring but only at Audrey now. She was quiet and she wasn’t crying. Was she not upset? Was she not devastated by his death? Did she not give a crap about him? That was when he remembered he had confronted them, his best friend and his girl. He had accused them of having an affair, of sleeping with each other behind his back. He raged with anger and screamed at that them for what seemed like eternity. Both of them denied it, of course, but he thought of all the times they had been talking somewhere else and suddenly stopped as soon as Flash approached. It was true, of course it was true. He remembered walking away from them and sitting in the corner of the motel room hoping the remnants of Adam’s score would take him somewhere else.
The ambulance pulled up outside of the ER but there was no rushing, no sense of emergency. Flash was gone and there was no reason to try and bring him back. Audrey was stopped from entering the building by the same cop who had been at the motel. “Miss Hepburn,” he heard the cop say calmly. “We need you to come down to the precinct and answer some questions. You have the right to remain silent,” he continued. Flash didn’t need to hear the rest of the statement; he’d heard it too many times at the end of hard night’s partying. Maybe he should go with her, make sure she’s okay or maybe he should go with his body. After all he needed to figure out what was to happen next. As he looked longingly at the girl he had loved for too many years he thought of that argument and realised he needed to take care of himself now.
As Audrey sat in the back of the car facing the cage between herself and the two men who were going to ask her all sorts of awkward questions she thought of that argument earlier with Adam and what had followed. She hated Adam, she’d always hated him. How could Flash have thought they were having an affair? She despised him and he despised her. They only pretended to get on because they had agreed to for Flash’s sake. But he wanted her gone. He wanted to be a band again with no girlfriends interrupting their road to success. How were they ever going to make it with her holding back the best singer Adam had ever known to wail out his tunes?
Adam sat on cold metal fire escape at the back of the motel room. He was shivering and his head hurt so badly that he felt it might actually explode. He thought of that argument, of what had happened. His stomach swam with grief as he looked at the black Jericho 941that was still being cradled by his right hand. Why did he have to protect her? Why did he have step in between them? Oh God, what had he done?
Wow, good first draft, definitly didn’t end how I thought it would!