October 6th: Run

 
Two pale pink roses, growing on a bush. Against the colour of the soil, is overlaid the text "#drabbletober".
 

Day six of my drabble-a-day challenge. Here’s is today’s drabble:


Run

It was an odd little place, tucked down a side-road. Half a dozen rickety tables, a laminated picture-menu and stacks of cheap, wooden chopsticks.

The food was good - we ate dumplings, and a chilli-soaked dish of aubergine and ground lamb - but the constant gaze of the waiters made me nervous. Was every whispered conversation about us?

"Let's get out of here."

When I returned from the bathroom, my sister was gone. Her chair was overturned, the restaurant door open. On the table were the crumbs of a fortune cookie, and a scrap of paper.

It read: RUN.


This is an idea that’s been lurking about in the back of my head for years. It was just an isolated plotpoint: someone opens a fortune cookie, finds the fortune inside just says “run”, and acts on it. I could never come up with quite why this happened, or what happened next.

But I think, for a drabble, that’s OK.