Playing the Fool - Troll Country - Not Okay

Flash Fiction / Micro Fiction

Length - 100 words each

Three pieces written for the competition theme 'Fool'.
* 'Not Okay' finished 2nd Place in the competition!

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Playing the Fool

David rolled his eyes as Jon argued, shaking the will above their father's hospital bed. 'An equal share, Dad? He's leaving your company to work for a charity for chrissakes! That fool clearly doesn't understand how money works!'

Their father politely declined revision.

'... unless a listed beneficiary should have fallen on hard times and is unable to command an income. Under such circumstances the entire sum reverts to the aforementioned in order to support-'

                'The entire sum!?' Jon balked.

                David nodded his head. 'A little while working for nothing has given me everything. Not such a fool now, eh?'

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Troll Country

'Through there?' Mandrag said, 'I don't know, Sir. It's marked here on the map as 'Troll Country'.'

                'Don't be a fool.' His master said, snatching the aged parchment. 'Lazy cartography is all. You've heard of 'Here be Dragons?' It's just a local variation.'

Three deformed hulking brutes roared appreciatively as they stripped the cooked flesh from another human leg, the discarded femur taking its place upon an ivory pile some two feet high.

                Sir Geoffrey watched from their hanging metal cage with sunken eyes. 'I bet nobody ever leaves this place.'

                Mandrag quietly tore the map to shreds. 'Someone did.'

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Not Okay

Caught adrift in a supermarket aisle, grief, pure and simple, washed through me like a wave. I hastily concocted cover and dropped some canned food onto my foot.

                'These damned hands!' I said, forcing a smile through freshly salted cheeks. 'Help me pick these up will you?'

                'No.' My son's eyes were smouldering. 'You're not hurt. You're crying. Again. You're not fooling anyone,' he sighed. 'Just admit it.'

                'I'm-'

                Ten years young and freshly motherless, it should be me keeping him afloat. An approaching sea of faces whispered their symphony of sympathy.

                'I'm...'

                Worse. They circled with concern.

                'I'm fine.'

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