Stay back Moses

Gabriel hated detention. It was such a bore, sitting in an empty classroom, completing some mindless task. And it wasn’t his fault anyway. It was that prig Michael, with his shining metal ruler and his Monitor badge. He’d been asking for it. But Mr. Jaweh would never punish Michael. Oh no. Michael was Mr. Jaweh’s favourite. So it was Gabriel who’d ended up staying back after hours, copying “Thou shalt not throw chalk in the classroom” five hundred times. What a pain.

By the three hundredth line, Gabriel was drowning in boredom. He needed a break. He didn’t dare move from his chair, though – if Mr. Jaweh caught him he would have to spend a whole week scribbling out some stupid edict or the other. Staring at the lines laid out before him, ten to a page, Gabriel had an idea. Why not make up his own lines? Like “Thou shalt not make love to a goat”. Or “Thou shalt not bathe Mr. Jaweh’s beard in gasoline and set fire to it”. Staring at the words on the page, Gabriel felt a moment of panic at their terrible finality. Then he chuckled. This was fun.

Ten minutes later, Gabriel heard footsteps. Mr. Jaweh must be coming to check on him. With desperate haste, Gabriel tore the pages with the offending lines from his notebook, slipped them under his desk. When Mr. Jaweh had gone (having scolded Gabriel for writing so slowly) he slipped them out from their hiding place, put them away in his bag. It was strange though. He could have sworn there had been three pages but now there were only two. As he went back to work, he wondered, idly, where the third one had got to.

[One of my three entries for the Caferati Flash Fiction contest (where, as usual, I won nothing - I don't know why I even bother). The second tomorrow. The third at some undefined point in the future]