Stories in Short #15 (Oversight: from a drone, to your news-feed, to your comfy chair)

Daily Prompt – Oversight

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Don’t move. Stand up straight. Backs against the wall. Repeated, repeated, repeated. The man with the whip moved backwards, then forwards, repeating, repeating. In the distance there was the rattle of machine gun fire, the barking of a dog, the faint hum of a drone, a noise we’d all come to know and understand. Someone, somewhere, was watching us, and doing nothing.

Don’t move. Stand up straight. Backs against the wall.

Nameless others stood beside me. I recognised their faces from the street. We might’ve exchanged a look once, twice. All from the same place, of different parents, of different professions, of different religion. Rooted here only through birth. What our parents were, what our parents wanted us to be.

Don’t move. Stand up straight. Backs against the wall.

In front of the man with the whip, we were the same. We were nothing. In the trucks sat men with scarves around their faces, we didn’t know who they were. They were strangers with Kalashnikovs around their necks. They watched and chatted quietly among themselves. Some looked no older than fifteen, sixteen, from the way they slouched, their childish brow, their small hands. I couldn’t see their eyes clearly. I knew that if I could make them out, take a few paces forwards, I would see teenage eyes, hardened and cold.

Don’t move. Stand up straight. Backs against the wall.

The first shot came suddenly. There was no cry, no scream. Just a bang. A single shot. The others in line bristled, one man began to weep. His whole body shook. I watched the boys in the trucks, who slouched, and laughed, and joked, and talked quietly among themselves.

Don’t move.

Don’t move.

Stand up straight.

Backs against the wall.

 

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These stories come thick and fast. I’m writing more these days than I have done in a long time. Thanks for your continued support.

What about another daily prompt story?

…or another?