Acknowledging your guilt

Acknowledging your guilt

   Nestled in a cool green valle, lies the small town of Greenstone, with the gentle Gosp River winding through it. Max Scott is the town’s mayor, though his reputation is less than stellar. One morning, he receives an unexpected visitor: Melanie Bardell, a county administrator. Melanie’s purpose is straightforward: she needs Max to sign documents that would secure essential funds to enhance city services, especially since Greenstone has been expanding rapidly over the past decade due to the opening of a nearby factory beside the old town. This growth has led to a surge of small businesses and, with it, a demand for improved municipal services, like more medical services (first aid), bus service, improve shool structures, nurseries, etcetera.

Melanie and Max have a long-standing, rocky relationship. Melanie harbors frustration toward Max, who she sees as an absentee leader. Instead of attending to city matters, Max offloads tasks to his team and spends his days with friends, using his mayoral title to benefit his private ventures. Her unannounced visit is no accident; she’s strategically timed it, hoping to catch Max alone, knowing that he often prepares for meetings with his team in advance to deflect her questions to his team and exempt him of giving any explanation.

Max seems irritated, protesting that this unscheduled visit disrupts his day, but Melanie is insistent. She reminds him of his duty to sign the county budget document, urgently needed for Greenstone’s development. When he asks for the document, Melanie explains she emailed it to his private account that morning. To download and print it, he must access this account himself, as only he knows the password.

Reluctantly, Max opens his laptop, pulls up the email portal, and tries to enter the password. His first attempt fails, much to Melanie’s silent satisfaction. Each second he struggles, her confidence grows. “Everything alright, Max?” she asks, barely masking her amusement.

Max hesitates, blaming a slow internet connection as he tries to collect his thoughts. But as Melanie steps closer to peek at the screen, she raises an eyebrow, “Could you have forgotten your password, Max? By law, only you can access it.”

After a pause, Max takes a deep breath. “You’re right, Melanie. I may have been neglecting my responsibilities. But I know the password—I’ll prove it.” Acknowledging his failings eases some of the pressure, and, with a clearer head, he successfully logs in, downloads, and signs the document.

As Melanie leaves, she reflects on Max’s admission. While he ultimately did his duty, she still sees little true commitment in him and hopes for new leadership in Greenstone soon. Her last thought is simple but satisfying: “At least he admitted it—better than nothing.”

 Toni Font 04/09/2020, Aberdeen.

A Stubborn Man

A Stubborn Man

   It was in a civil war in a Middle Eastern country. Michelle, Jack, Elliott and Laura were American journalists, they almost always travelled together because in wartime it is safer to work as a team than alone, then at night, each one writes their own report and sends it to their bosses.

Like almost all journalists, each of them had a Twitter account, it is a great tool to freely give and receive information. During a car ride to a meeting with some underground rebels for an interview, Jack lamented having to delete one of his tweets because some of his information was inaccurate. Elliot taunted him. Laura was upset with Elliott's arrogance and reproached him saying that surely he must have had to delete his own tweets hundreds of times, but Elliott said that he never deleted any of his tweets because he is so confident in himself. At that moment, Elliott's arrogance was unbearable.

The interview with the rebels was not easy at all. They had their faces covered. The rebels acted very restless and apprehensive, which made the interview difficult, in fact, the interview was being a nightmare for both groups. They both wanted to finish as soon as possible except for Elliott. Elliott began to be impertinent by asking questions that were quite obvious they didn't like. In fact, Elliott made the situation too tense until the rebel leader said; "Enough, the interview is over," but Elliott insisted on getting more information, it was too late, the rebels refused to take any more questions.

The meeting had taken place in a lonely house on the outskirts. After that, while they were walking back to the car, Elliott was showing very angry with the rebels, he wanted to go back to the house to ask a few more questions, his companions tried to persuade him to relax. However, Elliott was determined to ask them a couple of questions. Michelle, Jack, and Laura were in a difficult situation because they couldn't let Elliott go there alone. Elliott was acting like a stubborn, selfish, and stupid man because he was putting them all at risk.

Then Elliott started walking towards the rebel house again, the other three were following him against their will. When they were about 50 meters from the door of the house, the door was suddenly opened and the rebels came out screaming with firearms, the four journalists fell to the ground, but it was too late, the rebels killed them all. The rebel leader said: "I told you it was over."

Elliott's stubbornness ended his life and that of his peers. However, this is not a justification for the murderers, they committed a crime and they must pay for it.

 Antoni Font Bardolet 21/08/2020, Aberdeen.

  

Starsky and Hutch

 Starsky and Hutch

   William was in the corner of the yard trying to fix a puncture on his bike wheel. Anyone who has repaired a puncture knows that it is not at all easy, especially the process of removing the inner tube out, but William did it very well. While he was looking for the hole in the inner tube, his sister Jessica approached him, she was crying in a panic because she accidentally broke the fish tank while doing fitness in a YourTube session. She simply lost the balance of her body and with a quick movement to regain her body balance properly, her elbow hit the fishbowl enough to knock it to the ground. It wasn't a big tank, but ...

The fish tank was very special to his father, Paul, sometimes it seemed that Paul loved Starsky and Hutch more than his own children and wife. Starsky was a red fish that replaced the old Veronica who sadly died three months ago, Hutch was a blue fish that Olivia, her mother, had demanded of Paul, she no longer wanted lonely fish. At first, Paul didn't like the idea of having two fishes, he saw it as a threat because maybe they would not be friends. After all, Paul was more than happy with Starsky and Hutch.

"Did you put Starsky and Hutch in water ?!" William said, Jessica opened her mouth in a surprised expression, "Damn it!" shouted William and ran into the living room, easily found Starsky and Hutch, they weren't moving at all, anyway, William put them in the sink and turned on the tap, it was too late, Starsky and Hutch were dead. "now what?" William exclaimed indignantly and knowing that Jessica had had problems with her parents recently.

Jessica was 17 years old, she was hiding her boyfriend, Tom, from her parents, and that was creating constant problems for her. Jessica sometimes had to hide Tom in her room or even she would occasionally go to Tom's house in the middle of the night. William knows this and is very upset with her. Her parents knew something was happening to Jessica, well ... in fact, they already know it intuitively. But the point isn't that, William thought, the point is that Jessica should tell that has a boyfriend to them even though they sure wouldn't like it. And now, if they find out that Jessica is responsible for the deaths of Starsky and Hutch, surely it will be a bad mood at home for a long time.

William thought very fast, although he was upset with Jessica, he did not want to live in constant arguments at home, that made him sick, so William proposed a deal to Jessica, if she promised to tell her parents the truth about her boyfriend Tom, then William would say that he had broken the fish tank. After hearing Wiliam's proposal, Jessica was speechless, "Hurry to think, they'll come soon," William said, then Jessica said that she broke up with Tom. She burst into tears.

William knew his sister's crocodile tears, he didn't even believe at all about her break-up with Tom. "Okay, crystal clear, we'll tell the truth, no lies," said William, "wait!" Jessica replied, then she told him the real truth. That made everything worse than worse, now it was William's mouth that fell open. They weren't crocodile tears, she was really scared. At that moment, her parents' car was arriving.

William gave up, he was not for alibis, he was too overwhelmed. Olivia entered before Paul. When Olivia saw William and Jessica's faces, she deduced that something was wrong and said, "What's going on here?"

Then it was an intense silent dialogue, Olivia and Paul had seen the crime scene, even the corpses of Starsky and Hutch in the sink, but they knew it was not the worst, their silence hid something worse. Olivia had a hunch and then she looked at Paul, Paul read her eyes correctly, then they both slowly took a step back.

Finally, it was Olivia who spoke looking at Jessica: "oh dear, you are pregnant."

 Antoni Font Bardolet 11/08/2020, Aberdeen.