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Drabble Corner

Michelle Swisz

Here's our first Drabble of the year, by Tom Nelson, on Happiness—

Rise and Shine

In Charlie's room, a respirator forced life into the unresponsive patient in the next bed. At regular intervals a machine sucked mucus from his ruined and useless lungs. Death had emptied the remaining two beds sometime during the night. Laughter from the nurse's station echoed down the cold, dark corridor.

"Good morning Charlie. Rise and shine," said Connie the day shift nurse.

Charlie blinked several times as bright fluorescent light hit his retinas and exploded in his visual cortex. He had survived another night. Outside, birds celebrated with raucous joy as the sun peeked over the gently rolling California hills.

If you were to do a free association on our last topic, happiness, you’d come up with what—sadness, maybe? That’s what I came up with—a lot of it since our last column. Don’t ask. This time, though, having a restriction that there be no romantic relationship in a Drabble that was based on it would be inappropriate.

As with all relationships from time to time, there was a complication. Before the formal revelation, I suspected, and I suppose I knew, that there had been a time bomb in the situation, but I didn't act on it—why? Because I didn't know what to do about it? No, I think it was more because I didn't want to risk the present for the sake of the future. Well, it was complicated even to begin with. Wish me luck with this particular complication!

Sadness would be a terrible topic to write about over the Winter holidays. So, our topic for the February 2004 Drabble column is Romantic Complications. Good ones, bad ones, funny ones...just romantic complications. Can you write and cry (or laugh) at the same time? Submissions are due by January 10. Here are our Guidelines. See you next time.