The Freedom of Screech (short story)

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Assignment:
Write a short story including these elements for thrilling effects:
* showing vs telling (better show than tell)
* planting (early point out what later will matter)
* gaps (lets reader imagine for theirself)
* suspense (threat, lack of time)
* precision (precisive descriptions))

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And there stood that man, talking to all those people. His hair was black with parts of light grey. He wore a dark pinstriped suit, the colours of which were much like those of his hair. A pair of thick glasses concealed his eyes. With a smile surrounded by a rough stubble, he spoke to the sixto-two listeners, who filled the auditorium, watching him with inspired eyes and agreeing with every word, their hands holding notebooks resting in their laps. Positive murmur was heard from here and there; everyone loved what he said.

Everyone but me. That for a quite obvious reason: he was totally contradicting my philosophy. His thoughts were the opposite of mine. The problem wasn''''t the contradiction itself, but that he tricked the whole audience into it all. He stuffed them full of his dirty speak and they accepted it without questioning a single part. That''''s why I didn''''t smile and agree. That''''s why I hated it.

I stood in the doorway to the hall as all the seats were taken. There were some other people standing near me, too. I guess I was the only one not agreeing in the room. Lucky him he never looked my way, or I''''m sure he would have lost his track by the look of my face. Yes, I was angry. Nearly furious, even.

After his hour-long awful blabber was finished, the applause rose in the hall, long and loud. It lasted somewhere near a minute more than enough to cross the border of my tolerance. I clenched my fists and pressed my jaws together harder. Then I hit my right hand softly to the thin wall beside me. A dark woman in a beige cardigan, one of the people standing around me (as good as everyone were standing now, applauding) looked at me for a second, while lowering her clapping hands a little and loosening her smile on the right side of her face. The freak. I walked out of the hall.

I sat down on a chair in the corridor outside and tried to calm down. The words of that petty moral bastard echoed in my mind and I hated every one of them. I just couldn''''t get him out of my head. And that was when I decided that the son-of-a-dog was going down.

People were starting to come out from the lecture hall. I rose and followed the stream out.


Four hours later it was dark outside, and the man who had been speaking was going to leave for home. I knew where his car was parked, forty metres from the building, and which way out he was probably going to take. The receptionists were really easily tricked. A hammer which I had brought from home, lied in the hip-pocket of my jeans. And so I lurked by some bushes out of the streetlights at the parking lot. It was a dull, damp and rainy weather. There wasn''''t more than about fifteen metres of visibility. I rested, making sure I was prepared and nothing could go wrong.

After eleven minutes, the man, my victim, awaitedly came out through the exit. At first I just heard it – an extension from the building was in the way of sight. What I could hear nearly drowned in the noise of the wind: the door opening, some steps, the door closing again, and some muffled sound from him putting his briefcase on the ground while buttoning his coat. Now he came out of the darkness and into sight. Yes, it was him.

He walked some six meters and I got ready to walk out on the lot. My hiding place was in a right angle from the path to his car. I sneaked towards him diagonally from behind, half-running. The noisy wind was on my side now, drenching my steps on the damp and gravelly asphalt. He didn''''t seem to notice my presence. My grip to the hammer, still in my pocket, tightened as I closed up.

I pulled my weapon out, but had moved it just a couple of inches as I was suddenly disturbed in my action – someone screamed from beside the building behind me: "HEY! WHAT THE HELL!" I turned around.


A hammer. Wasn''''t as serious as it sounds — at first. Hadn''''t been plann...