Point Of Contention

"STOP!"

Despite my attempt to prevent it, the sound of a car and a brick wall having a disagreement about where each other was filled the air.

I slowly approached the point of contention, hoping to find that the wall had defended their point well. But instead, I found that it had been forced to concede a lot of points and had pretty much lost the argument.

As I silently debated the best way to deal with this, she wound down her window and glared.

"Why didn't you warn me, you stupid idiot?"

Another point of contention had clearly arisen. 

True Power

I learnt from my first teacher that true power was having a good gun, a steady hand, and enough ammo.

I learnt from my second teacher that true power was having enough men (or women or whatever) who'd do what you said, no questions asked.

I learnt from my third teacher that true power was controlling the board, no matter how many players and pieces there were.

I learnt from my fourth teacher that true power was the ability to survive, thrive, no matter what happened on the board.

I learnt from my fifth teacher nothing before I shot them.

Sent Up

We passed each other on the stairs every morning. Him going up, me going down.

I built up a pretty clear picture of him from those passings. The obvious stuff was easy, the fact he was usually running upwards meant he exercised, the running shirt with the company fun run participant logo told me who he worked for, stuff like that.

Then the smaller stuff, the wedding ring, the broken nose, they started filling in the picture.

Of course, given that I had gone out of my way to give him false clues about me, maybe I was totally wrong.

Step 8

The procedure was hammered into every new trainee. No-one was allowed out on a run unless they could recite every step forwards, backwards, numerically, alphabetically, and every other way the instructors could think to ask.

Despite this, I found that when I was out with some kid on their first run, I had to watch them like a hawk. Half of them would fuck up.

You'd think it would always be on step 8, when it came time to shoot the target. But the guy who messed up step 12, forgetting the cash, that was a guy I worried about.

Escaped

When the chance came to escape, I took it.

Many years later, my daughter got out, and she didn't immediately hunt me down. I took this to mean that she didn't love me (because she didn't find me to hug me), nor did she hate me (because she didn't find me to stab me).

So I just kept going, until by sheer dumb luck we ran into each other.

And then she told me that she thought I was dead, because that's what her mother told them when I vanished.

She then gave me a hug.

And then stabbed me.

Over Done

The idea that people are complex and multifaceted is an obvious point that doesn't need to be made.

Except some people really are simple and straightforward, in both good and bad ways.

The idea that you can't love can survive any barrier or hardship is not so much obvious as it's just hammered home by so much media over so much time that it doesn't need to be said.

Except there are some hardships that irrecoverably alter what love can be, and others shouldn't be overcome.

So, with that said, my stupid now ex-girlfriend is sitting in jail right now.

Just A Friend

In order to analyse the spell, she said she needed to ask a friend, which she did by opening a tear in the air, a giant eye staring through. She held up the scroll, the eye focused on it, then the tear healed up, a piece of parchment drifting into her hand from where it had been.

"What was that?"

"My friend, he lives outside of existence, sort of."

"Sort of? What do you mean 'sort of'?"

"He lives in a different... Wait, who wrote this spell?"

"I did."

"But he says he did!"

Nice to know your own future.