Board Thread:Watercooler 2.0/@comment-6198648-20130228045108/@comment-6191693-20130311234445

Here we are: a story about a gun with no characters.

(I was bored so I accepted my own challenge)

On the wall, it hung in lonely silence above the mantle in the darkness. As the first few rays of the rising sun filtered through the gaps in the Venician blinds, its shape was just beginning to become clear in the growing light. The golden glint of morning graced first the polished wood of the stock, then slowly made its way across the trigger, the cool, dark steel of the barrel, which sparkled modestly in the growing light.

Sixty years after a nameless and long-forgotten assembly-line worker tightened the last screws and sent it off to serve its purpose, it bore all the scars that come with decades of abuse by the half-dozen people who have called it theirs, but was still as polished and as shiny as the day it was new.

Could this be the day? Could this be the day when that old rifle was gotten out to do the job it was meant to do? With every louvre the sun passed on the blinds, another moment passed by and the Time became closer and more likely.

Perhaps the nation was beset by foreign invaders who had arrived in the dead of night and who were only now making their way to this very place, where the weapon may be called upon for defense.

As the hours passed by, the enemy's strategic advantage and the likelihood dimmed.

The Thrill of the Hunt, perhaps?

The prime hunting hours of the early morning came and went.

By mid-afternoon, at the close of the workday, perhaps there would be some other enemies in the form of soup cans placed on a fence post or paper men with targets on their faces and torsos.

As the evening daylight began to fade to the cool blue of twilight, the firing ranges would be closing soon and soon this, too, was not to be.

But following the twilight came the darkness that offered inky camouflage to men in black clothes and ski masks. This would be the time when the weapon was needed. No burglar would dare face a man with such a weapon in his hands.

And no one did. The weapon remained hanging on the wall, unused for the day, but tomorrow, things may be different.