Writers Abroad Magazine Issue 2 March 2015 | Page 26

WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE

Samson and Delilah
Flash fiction by Gillian Brown
Rosie tossed her hair over her shoulder and nudged her friend Daniel at the next
desk.
“Why don’t we run away?” she whispered.
Daniel kept his eyes on Mrs P, their history teacher, and frowned. “What for?”
Rosie groaned, then her eyes lit up. “Mum and Dad watched a film last night. I
pretended to do my homework, but I saw it all.”
“What film?”
“Samson and Delilah.”
Daniel stuck a finger up his nose and wiggled it. “Never heard of it.”
“Gross!” Rosie said.
“What? The movie?”
“You.”
Daniel wiped his finger on his shorts. He liked Rosie. She was the only girl in the
class who was cool. “Tell me about the film.”
“Two Aboriginal kids lived in a remote community in the desert. They ran away.”
“From what?”
“Their nothing lives. They had mums and dads who loved them, but every day was
exactly the same as the day before. They’d had enough.”
“Why?”
Rosie screwed up her face. Daniel tried hard to concentrate. Rosie often had
these…like…ideas. Stuff they could do together. Mostly he chickened out.
“Rosie! Daniel!” Mrs P shouted. “Pay attention!”
Who cared about the discovery of Queensland? Daniel thought. Rosie would know
all the answers anyway, and help him with his homework. But they both remained quiet
for a while, pretending to listen.
“They ran away in the middle of the night,” Rosie whispered.
“Then what?” Daniel held his breath.
“Once they were on their own in the bush, they discovered things weren’t how they
expected. Each day was different. Life was unfair. Often scary. There was no one
there to tell them what was right or wrong. Or what to do.”
Daniel tried to imagine waking up in the morning without his mum preparing his
breakfast or his dad driving him to school. He shivered. “How did they live? What did
they eat?”
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