Unsettled
Leslie turned her mug in her hands several times, exhaled a long, slow breath, then added her mug to the table beside Peter’s.
“I’d want a guarantee, I guess,” she said, shifting her focus toward repeated unsuccessful attempts to secure some wayward strands of hair behind her ear.
Leslie knew it was not in her nature to take a leap of faith without gauging some level of certainty about the outcome. This, of course, rendered the action not a leap of faith at all, but rather a calculated choice completely lacking in either courage or conviction.
“Safety is an illusion,” Peter said with his trademark unfaltering calm. “No great reward comes without tremendous personal risk.”
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Written in response to this week’s Six Sentence Stories challenge, hosted by Girlie on the Edge. Each week writers are challenged to spin a tale in just six sentences.
This week’s cue is SAFETY.
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Featured image by StockSnap from Pixabay
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8 Comments
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Poor Leslie! She doesn’t believe yet that there are no guarantees. So I wonder – what is it she fears?
I’m enjoying Leslie and Peter’s saga 🙂
Seems like she fears uncertainty, the unknown. Perhaps she fears anything that is less than a textbook – or Hallmark – scenario. LOL
Opposites attract, but she needs to learn to get out of her own way. Good six with well drawn characters.
Thanks, D. Opposites do indeed attract and that is often a good thing. Too much of the same sometimes causes more friction than we realize. I like your assessment that Leslie needs to get out of her own way. Yeah.
ok, despite the position I took in my comment on the last installment, (of the tale of Leslie and Peter), I will swing in the opposite direction.
Leslie needs to be careful as Peter is showing his hand, either prematurely or by design, neither bodes well for our heroine who seems to have abandoned her resolve, along with her presumed standards (for relationships) with two words, “I guess.”
Nicely done. Keep us readers from getting complacent about our understanding of the characters and their motives.
(random writing thought, I’ve come across in my reading (about writing) the concept of the ‘unreliable narrator’. Which, as I read it, is a narrator who is lying… to the reader. And, this unreliability, becomes an element in the story.)
Can’t imagine being able to manage that kind of character.*
If thats what you’re doing with both Leslie and Peter, kudos, yo.
But perhaps I’m over-thinking**. Maybe she is well-meaning and a touch hypo-confident and he’s kind of a manipulative jerk.
Successful Six! Leave ’em wanting more.
* I can’t claim to be at the point of being able to manage my straightforward characters…lol As a matter of fact, I pretty much take them at face value, relying on them to tell me the story.
** yeah, I know! as if
Ah, the unreliable narrator! Clark, you’ve hit upon one of my favorite literary devices. I’d suggest that the unreliable narrator is not necessarily always a liar, per se, but sometimes incapable of delivery accurate or truthful circumstances for other reasons. The net result is the same – they cannot be trusted.
As for Peter and Leslie, I read her as more manipulative than Peter. Doesn’t mean I’m correct – as you said, the characters tell the story, not me!
Well, now…what’s to happen next? Looking forward to finding out!
Only time will tell for these two, I suppose. Thanks for reading, Lisa!