draliman on life

There’s a new(ish) photo flash fiction in blog town! It’s Mondays Finish the Story – not only is there a photo but the first sentence is written too.

We get 100-150 words, not including the starting sentence. Of course, I didn’t read the instructions properly and spent several desperate minutes cutting my story down to under 150 words including the first sentence. So I’ve put some words back in.

The first sentence is in the present tense, so I’ve stayed with that with some past tense in the middle. I hope it works okay.

This challenge uses the little blue froggy, so click on him to see this week’s other stories. I have put the provided sentence in bold in my story.

Sorry about the snow on my blog. I must have switched it on last year and I can’t be bothered to track down the setting right now. Because I’m lazy like that.

In the compound on the hill, lives a man with a dream. He walks up the marble path admiring his creation, already half-built –  domes rising, palm trees providing shelter from the baking sun.

“You’ll never do it!” they’d said.

“You’ve never amounted to anything!” they’d scoffed.

Yet here it was for all to see, rising from the barren sand.

It hadn’t been plain sailing. No-one would back him so he’d had to turn to “less reputable” sources of funding. People had warned him not to get involved with such people, but his dream would not die. Suffering cash-flow problems, he’d shrugged off the threats of his faceless investors. And besides, he would ensure that they would see amazing returns!

One day.

One day soon.

He opens the door, pushing past the pile of final demands on the doormat. Preoccupied with his dream, he doesn’t see the two shadows detach themselves from the wall and follow him silently up the stairs.