Awakened by the sound of a flute being played somewhere outside, she drew back the curtains from her bedroom window and went out onto the balcony overlooking the villa's courtyard, in which she could see a small red Fiat 850 with its bonnet up.
Blue and grey in the distance, above a line of poplar trees, were the foothills of the Alps, beyond which lay Switzerland, but there was no flautist to be seen. What she had heard was the radio in the small car.
From time to time the flow of music was broken by the sound of a spanner being dropped to the cobble-stones, as the car's owner, head bowed low below the open bonnet, worked on its engine whilst muttering an occasional Italian expletive.
Looking up, after retrieving yet another fallen spanner and uttering another oath, he caught sight of her leaning on the balcony railing, smiled and, raising his hand in a friendly salute, called out:
“Buongiorno signorina, fa bel tempo oggi, vero?"
Author notes
“Buongiorno signorina, fa bel tempo oggi, vero?"
a literal translation = "G'day miss, it makes good weather today, doesn't it?"
A contest entry
- Short story by my--i u--k i.
350 points, ended May 28, 2007, 14 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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interesting
This was a nice slice-of-life piece. Not really a story, though, because nothing changes, but I enjoyed reading it.
One note of criticism:
There were a lot of run-on sentences in this. Perhaps instead of so many commas, you could divide some of the longer sentences into two different sentences? It would make an easier read.
Also, I thought you did really well using concise, simple language. I tried it out for the contest and it was really friggin hard. Great job with that!
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