30 Second story Challenge by Indie Author Land

The 4 Word Challenge

in which we give one of our favourite authors 4 random words - Man, Woman, Airport, Darkness - and challenge them to tell us a story.

Divorced woman, Sandra is late for her the flight of her life to San Fransisco. Soaking wet with New York’s pouring rain, she reaches the airport and barely makes it onto the flight.The man sitting next to her is weird. There is something weird about his eyes; they are deep, intense and focused. Sandra’s wet dress and her chattering teeth are a major distraction. In a matter of seconds, he pulls his jacket forward to find a napkin for Sandra, she notices the reason for his weirdness: a gun. She knows he is a hijacker who has now placed his hands on her lips and is pressing her down with all his weight. In the darkness of the takeoff position, when everyone is tied to their seats with the belts, Sandra is lost deep in the eyes of a strange man who was here to kill her but was just giving her a napkin to wipe her face…

Life is messy as hell and really funny sometimes. The man had practiced this in his mind several times. The takeoff, the announcement of hijacking, the killing of innocent passengers, the taking over of the aircraft and following orders of his boss. But in the flash of a second it got washed away and now all he can think of is a strange woman next to him in a soaking wet, thin piece of fabric, carrying the lost love sadness in her eyes and not defending herself even for a second from the strong arms of this man capturing her to her entirety.

• Shahla Khan, author of I Want Back My SPARKLE (US, UK, CAN,AUS)

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