Overture ~ The Eve

    Detective Gast woke from a sweet dream. His clock read 12:00, October 31, but his face and the sagging features that it clang to suggested some time in the early hours. Despite a glance in the ever truthful mirror, the Detective knew that it was the clock that was honest and not his awful appearance. He went downstairs.
    'My God!' His wife blurted sarcastically through her coffee.
    'Oh, well thank you very much. I’m flattered' the Detective replied. He knew fine well how much the woman revelled in teasing him. He didn't blame her. She herself was a nurse and quite used to obscure and unreasonable working hours that came hand in hand with public service - it was just that she was used to it.
    'Too many late nights for you,' she insisted, like a mother, to him. What was that thing that Freud said again? He pondered this silently for a while, and then he spoke slowly.
    'Bonnie, will you please understand that this is just an adjustment. There’s nothing wrong. I would really appreciate it if you got off my back, if even just for a second.'
    'Okay, I’ll try. I just worry that sometimes you're not cut out for this kind of lifestyle. As a matter of fact, I can remember a time when you promised me that you would never take the night shift. What happened to that?'
    'Yeah, but that was before. Things were different then. I didn’t feel the obligations that I feel now. If you had been there…'
    Bonnie knew exactly to what he was referring. She was even working the very night that it happened. She had been there. Being a nurse often meant coming into contact with the same people that her husband did - if not what was left of them, “the scraps” as they were sometimes called. That night “the scraps” included none other than her very own husband, very close to death.
    The attacker had left Gast bleeding from the neck. A blood transfusion was successful, just. Gast survived. Bonnie felt no guilt that she had concentrated all of her efforts onto him that evening, no matter who ever else had been involved, or required her assistance. It was clear to her ever since, that it pained her husband, the Detective, to have been saved by is wife. This fact, in turn, pained her.

    And at that very moment, somewhere, a Halloween party was being prepared, a camping trip was underway and a strange man boarded a train for the city…

Reviews

[LJW]

This definitely makes me want to know what happens next. Good introduction ofthe initial characters and the dynamics of their relationship. Good use of dialogue, good reference to what is about to happen with the closing lines.

This paragraph is outstanding in particular:

Bonnie knew exactly to what he was referring. She was even working the very night that it happened. She had been there. Being a nurse often meant coming into contact with the same people that her husband did - if not what was left of them, "the scraps" as they were sometimes called. That night "the scraps" included none other than her very own husband, very close to death.