In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.
Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.
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http://writeworld.org/post/101669665253/his-smile-was-pretty-difficult-to-trust
His smile was pretty difficult to
trust. It was perfect. It always was. That wasn’t what she didn’t trust about
it.
She had tried to analyse it and
she had decided that it was because it didn’t ever quite reach his eyes. For
months, he had watched her and smiled at her as she sat at her desk outside of
the office until he was given permission to enter. But she knew, that, too was
not heartfelt.
He did it so well and so often; it
was as if it was a switch he didn’t know how to turn off.
She suspected that he was on
autopilot because she was not a beautiful woman, and nobody flirted with her. Except
him.
So, without strictly meaning to,
she started to take more of an interest in him. Espionage was a dangerous game.
The death rate was high. For a long time she had deliberately taken no interest
in any of the agents. Just in case.
But he made the Section Head shout
loudly enough to be heard from where she sat. It made her chuckle.
And as she read the field reports,
she tracked him and she started to care about his welfare. He got the volatile
regions. The areas that lacked everything from proper back-up to electricity
and running water.
His record was ... well, it looked
exemplary if you went by results only. He got the job done, but he cut corners,
and he sacrificed contacts. He came back with the results, but his direct boss
did not approve of his methods. He broke the rules.
Success in these areas merely
ensured that he stayed there. Especially if people the Section Head thought of
as more valuable were going to be risked to replace him.
The body count grew. The trail of
broken women increased as well, and yet... he kept coming back. There he was
smiling at her and flirting the way he always did. A new scar on his face
making him look as dangerous as he clearly was.
Asked to complete a list of
candidates for a very high risk job for the top department head, referred to
only by a letter moniker, she added his name. She knew that the Section Head
cared only for results. He should have been on it for his success rate alone
and it was an oversight by her boss that she merely corrected. That was what
she told herself. Perhaps she was more adept at lying than she had suspected.
At least to herself.
He got the job, completed it and
almost caused a full interagency war. The scientist he had extracted, under the
most extreme of conditions, refused to talk to anyone else but him and that
scientist was supposed to be handed over to the Americans. Now, he was
indispensable.
When she got home that night her
cat was waiting on the back step for her. “Who let you out?” she asked it.
On her bedside table was a box
wrapped in pale blue tissue paper. Inside it was a bracelet. It was one of
those ones where you added one bead, or charm, at a time. A plain silver band.
Plain; like her. There was only one bead and it was a dark maroon that matched
her favourite lipstick perfectly.
There was no card, but she knew
who had left it.
The next day he was called in. He
perched on the edge of her desk rather than sit on a chair. She tutted at him
and tapped the back of his hand where a rather obvious and brand new cat scratch
resided. He tapped her new bracelet where it lay around her wrist.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back at her and it took
her breath away. It reached his eyes.
She realised that it wasn’t that
his smile was difficult to trust, it was that he was.
You had to earn it.
~~~~
© AM Gray 2014
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