World's End
A Story Every Day in 2024 - Jan 17th 17/366
This story has been written in response to L.C. Schäfer's proposal to spend 2024 choosing to write a microfiction story every day, making 366 stories for every day of this lovely leap year. You can check her original story out here:
Prompt number seventeen:
The picture is the prompt
***
"It is fitting, is it not, that we should meet here at World's End?"
Michael tried to disguise his surprise at the sound of Max's voice behind him. He concentrated on the magnificent view ahead of him.
"After all, you have been the orchestrator of the end of my world as I knew it so it seems only fair to restore the balance, as it were, and be the person who ends yours."
The clouds were growing ever more black and gathering together, forming an angry mob. Michael had never meant to fall in love with Max's wife; never meant for her to leave him; never meant to lose his best friend. It had just happened. He was a decent man. He knew the hurt he had inflicted and yet, he could not see how it could ever have been stopped. His union with Lydia had seemed inevitable, unstoppable, designed to be.
He couldn't say anything of this to Max. It would only create more friction and there was enough already, the hairs on Michael's arms raising themselves in reverence to the charge that nature was brewing above.
World's End. A place named by an explorer who commented it was like "reaching the end of the world", and so, it had been named.
"What do you want, Max?" Michael asked, although he knew.
Max's words sprayed like molten spittle from his mouth as he said,
"I want you gone. Isn't that obvious? And today is the day."
In a rush, Max launched himself at Michael who still had not turned to face him.
A tussle ensued: punches thrown, roars emitted, scratches tearing skin, blood running, skin bruised.
Only one man made it back from World's End that day.
***
Lydia said nothing about Michael's wounds when he arrived home. She was satisfied with his "fall" explanation. He'd been lucky, he'd said, although his face and posture told a different tale.
But when Max, who had been a persistent niggle, suddenly stopped pestering her, a seed of suspicion was planted as Lydia recalled the memory of Michael's battered physique after World's End.
The coldness and distance that Lydia developed towards her lover could not have pleased Max more.
***
366 words
I am using a lot of pictures as prompts at the moment and I like this as I think that any writer can bring something different to the table when presented with an image. We all read different things into them and we all write different stories as a result.
I'm not sure who I feel more sorry for in this story: Max because of his misery and vengeful spirit; or Michael and his predicament by the end of it.
Thanks for stopping by. If you've read this story, please do leave a comment as I love to interact with my readers.
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Comments (7)
Ohh I got so scared you were going to leave us hanging and not tell us which one came back! Loved the ending, very fitting.
I only feel sad for Max. Not Michael or Lydia. Cheaters never prosper! Loved your story and the twist at the end!
At first I thought you might take us to the pub featured in the Simon Pegg movie "The World's End". But then you mentioned the view which made me think of the communities we served in north central South Dakota for nine years. I liked to tell people that we live close enough to the end of the world that we could see it from our front doorstep. The reason it was the end of the world? Because once you had seen it, there was nowhere else you needed or wanted to go. Interesting story & delightful little slow twist of the knife at the end. The best revenge when your life is over? To die at your rival's hands, assuring she will resent him for it for the rest of their lives.
Drama packed! Loved the setting/photo inspiration!
Don’t feel obligated to read my comment. It’s long and rambling because of how I think about fate/karma and is reflected in my more painful stories. Other than the really nasty characters I create, I feel empathy for all of them. But I still write what I write, even if I believe that what the character experiences is unjust or unfortunate. Because stories take on a life all their own does not absolve me from crafting them. I believe storytelling is a mind-blowing interchange between a conscious act of creation and the unconscious forces interacting with it. The question then is why do we pity a character and yet punish them? When I write from an omniscient perspective I am fate, god or karma for that story. I believe in karma and cosmic reciprocity because I have experienced it in my own life with all its painful and sometimes irrevocable consequences and yet worse, I have witnessed it ravage people I love. I apologize for blabbing on and on about this but your writing makes it clear that you think and feel deeply about life. I am open to the possibility that fate and karmic reciprocity are wishful or dreadful fairy tales, but I want to believe that a benevolent power cares for those of us who care and worry about others and fear at the same time that the exact opposite is true. I have lived long enough to have watch people wreck their lives and on occasion even die because like Michael and Max they simply could not do otherwise. Don’t feel any obligation to respond if this puts you off.
So much packed into so few words.
Ooooh, I love a good twist and cosmic reciprocity!