Always the Same Place
Flash Fiction Month 2014, Day 17
Challenge #8: Write a story addressing a social issue. It must be serious in nature and not use any first person pronouns.
Jason went to meet his friends under the big tree in the park.
Ernest nudged his wife, sitting next to him on the bench. “They’re always loitering over there. You don’t know what they’re up to—always got their hoods up! Probably fighting. Probably drugs.”
They moved beneath the awning of the local shops.
“Here they come again,” said Mabel. “Always standing in that same place. Shoplifting. And there was that brick through the window last year.”
Jason said goodbye and headed home.
“Tch,” snorted Grandad, jabbing the air with a finger. “Always upstairs glued to that screen. There was a time kids went outside once in a while!”
If you’ve enjoyed this story, you can find my work from Flash Fiction Month 2012 and 2013 collected in OCR is Not the Only Font and Red Herring respectively.
Damon L. Wakes 
When you belong to the wrong group, there’s nothing you can do right, is there? 😦
I think you want to get rid of the italics for “said Mabel”, though 😉
Definitely. It was strange growing up and having people complain that “kids today don’t spend any time outdoors” while simultaneously the police were saying “if we find you congregating, we’ll move you along.” I don’t know any other group that can get hassled like that just for being out in public.
Also spot on about the italics–I’ll fix that now. 😉