Drabbles!
What do I do with a day off? I drabble, of course! Three drabbles that are totally not related with potential spoilers up to 4.03. Enjoy!
Title: Red Rover
Character: Hurley
It's like that game they used to play just to the left of the kickball field. Lined up on opposite sides, they'd dare one another to cross; to break through enemy lines. He'd watch from the sidelines wishing to play; knowing enough not to ask. Little Jamie Connor was less than half his size.
It's like that now with Locke's urgent voice invoking Charlie's name and Jack's claim that they've all been saved and somewhere in the back of his mind, he can still hear the song.
Red Rover, Red Rover, we dare Hugo over...
He doesn’t want to play.
Title: Nobody Ever Says Anything Mean in the Obits
Character: Helen
She's turned off the television and the radio, tired of hearing over and over the details of that crash, and pushed aside the comics - (funnies John used to say.) She sips from her usual blue mug and removes the last page (the nicest part), settling down to her morning routine.
Tea scalds her hand when she recognizes a name.
It’s short on words and lacking a picture, written by some staff writer who couldn’t find a thing to say.
Nobody ever says anything mean in the obits, she used to say.
Sometimes, she learns, they say nothing at all.
Title: Another Path
Character: Claire
It was best for Aaron, she told herself.
She hadn't intended to follow him. She wouldn’t call it trust. (Certainly not anymore.) It’s practical. It’s survival. It’s all she can provide.
Step after step and day after day. And now she's here. Here with her son screaming in a strange little house with peeling paint and she's thinking for the thousandth time that she can't do this alone. (And she knows she is all alone.)
"Claire? He's crying again."
The newsman says they've found the crash. "Coming, Thomas."
She wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if she'd boarded that plane.
Title: Red Rover
Character: Hurley
It's like that game they used to play just to the left of the kickball field. Lined up on opposite sides, they'd dare one another to cross; to break through enemy lines. He'd watch from the sidelines wishing to play; knowing enough not to ask. Little Jamie Connor was less than half his size.
It's like that now with Locke's urgent voice invoking Charlie's name and Jack's claim that they've all been saved and somewhere in the back of his mind, he can still hear the song.
Red Rover, Red Rover, we dare Hugo over...
He doesn’t want to play.
Title: Nobody Ever Says Anything Mean in the Obits
Character: Helen
She's turned off the television and the radio, tired of hearing over and over the details of that crash, and pushed aside the comics - (funnies John used to say.) She sips from her usual blue mug and removes the last page (the nicest part), settling down to her morning routine.
Tea scalds her hand when she recognizes a name.
It’s short on words and lacking a picture, written by some staff writer who couldn’t find a thing to say.
Nobody ever says anything mean in the obits, she used to say.
Sometimes, she learns, they say nothing at all.
Title: Another Path
Character: Claire
It was best for Aaron, she told herself.
She hadn't intended to follow him. She wouldn’t call it trust. (Certainly not anymore.) It’s practical. It’s survival. It’s all she can provide.
Step after step and day after day. And now she's here. Here with her son screaming in a strange little house with peeling paint and she's thinking for the thousandth time that she can't do this alone. (And she knows she is all alone.)
"Claire? He's crying again."
The newsman says they've found the crash. "Coming, Thomas."
She wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if she'd boarded that plane.