The Reluctant Reporter
A Story Every Day in 2024 April 11th 102/366
"You can't send me!"
"There is no-one else. It's you or no-one, and that is not an option."
Ameera looked at the fat paunch and florid face of her boss, a man who lived for the story and the kudos it brought him but who rarely gave consideration to the people behind the drama. When had he become so hard? She reckoned that by the end of the year, he'd be dead, collapsed from a heart attack and she struggled to conjure any sympathy in that moment and instantly felt ashamed at displaying the same lack of compassion that he had.
Head down, she walked out of the office to her car to face the toughest assignment of her life so far.
*
As she pulled up outside the small terraced house, she could sense the sadness. The sky was grey, clouds preventing any light through. Pathetic fallacy in action, she thought. Heavy, she unclipped her seatbelt and stepped out of her car. Her back was aching and what she really wanted to do was have a nap. She was wearing something much looser than normal, draping its folds squarely over her bump but managing to do nothing to disguise the fact that she was pregnant.
She took a moment to prepare herself. Be good, baby, she thought as she rubbed her bump, transmitting through her touch her will for the baby to behave with respect.
*
She watched the reporter from behind the curtain.
Pregnant. About seven months, she thought. Why had they sent her a pregnant reporter? Who were these people?
She didn't think she could do this. She didn't have the strength. Her grief threatened to overwhelm her, chest crushed and her breath reduced to minimal gasps. Stop, she told herself. Just stop.
Slowly, as she watched the reporter heading up the path, avoiding the scattered toys and the thick coloured chalk that she hadn't yet been able to confront, she wondered what she would say to this woman today.
And then she remembered. That she was no longer a mum because her daughter was dead; her life ripped, torn, destroyed. And the man responsible was walking free.
She would find her steel.
***
366 words
Helped again to this story by a prompt from the following page:
One of the things that I like to do as a storyteller is to imagine how characters feel in certain situations and this prompt provided that:
A pregnant journalist interviews the mother of a missing child.
I've not really followed this prompt to the letter but it gave me the spark to write this.
Thanks for stopping by! If you do read this, please do leave a comment as I love to interact with my readers.
102/366
About the Creator
Rachel Deeming
Mum, blogger, crafter, reviewer, writer, traveller: I love to write and I am not limited by form. Here, you will find stories, articles, opinion pieces, poems, all of which reflect me: who I am, what I love, what I feel, how I view things.
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Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
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The One Hundred
"Why are we here? What do you want with us?" The Creator peered curiously into the glass globe infront of her, a benevolent presence in an otherwise bewildering situation. It was her world and she was its ruler. Like a mad professor in a lab., she could observe and analyse and alter and remove if she liked as she was the controller of the Globe and everything that lay therein.
By Rachel Deeming20 days ago in Fiction
Comments (27)
Congrats on Top Story!🥳🥳🥳
Congratulations super story
Congratulations, Rachel! I can't believe I missed this one before! You do a superb job of getting into the hearts and minds of your characters.
YAY! Well done Rachel!
Brilliantly crafted flash. Well done and congratulations on the TS
Congrats on TS and no wonder. Well done.
This is so quickly evocative.
great job!
Back to say congratulations on your Top Story! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Ooh let’s find that damn murderer! Two points of view, nice. Congrats on TS.
A richly merited TS! The perspectival shift is adroit!
Luckily I only ever had to do a couple of death knocks in my days as a news reporter. One was at the family's request, which made it a bit less stressful. The other wasn't, and was a very tense encounter. Not least because the victim had a somewhat chequered past, and not everybody appreciated questions about him.
I like that you included the interviewee’s point of view at the end, powerfully showed that the interviewer wasn’t the only one with a job to do. Congrats on Top Story!
Oh my ,the dynamics is stirring!!! Wonderfully written!!!❤️❤️💕 Congratulations on Top Story!!!
Powerful and so well drawn out, I kept reading wondering where this was going. You did such a great job of the inner conflict and discussion going on.
You did best in 366 words describing human emotions, challenges and scenarios. well done, it is not an easy job to write a perfect piece in limited words.
A very human piece! I loved the way you described all the difficult and conflicting emotions around the situation here, your word choice is perfect :)
Who would be more empathetic to a woman who just lost a child than one about to give birth to one? Excellent story and congratulations on your top story!
Excellent writing. I used to be a reporter on a local newspaper… it’s true that there were some stories you didn’t want to cover and some stories that will live with me forever. I think once you lose any semblance of compassion it’s time to switch to something else. There’s objectivity and then there’s a complete lack of empathy. You did awesome with this Rachel.
An excellent story, and I love the way you showed it from the perspective of both characters. Excellent job, Rachel and congratulations!
I like how you use chains of powerful words to pack the emotional punch with a small amount of text. Thanks for the story
Back to say, congrats, chumly-chum-chum-charee!
Excellent characters and descriptions in such a short amount of length!
What a powerful story, the empath in you breaks through here, Rachel.
Another excellent story… though so sad.