Flash Fiction: Saving Time
This tiny story was inspired by an exercise set at Doncaster Writers' Group. The story had to include a man, a young girl, a mother, a bench, an ice cream, a bank and a coat. The image is supplied by Pixabay and the protagonists' names may bear a certain resemblance to minor characters in a popular kids' story involving wizards. But hey, didn't TS Eliot say that all good writing is borrowing? Or something like that? James stepped off the bus and frowned at the view. Outside the bank, there was no cash machine or security screen. The staff were all dressed in olde-worlde clothes. He dropped onto the bus stop bench and looked around. A girl walked past eating an ice-cream. She was wrapped in a short, mint-green trenchcoat. He'd seen one like it before, tattered and moth-eaten at the back of his mother's wardrobe when he and his sister had cleared her house out for her move into the home. "Lily," he called, not really believing himself...