September 2026 - Desmond Goes Off Script
Desmond was an arsehole.
He didn’t give a shit what people thought. Folks were always bloody imposing on him. All “You have to do this”, “I need that”, and “Take the kids to footy-training.” He was a business man! Time was money…
Bastards and thieves, the lot of them.
Take his wife. Just before lunch, she called him whining that she’s too sick to drive to the chemist. Bloody useless. She’d made it to the doctor, hadn’t she? Maybe if she lost some weight, she wouldn’t have so many bloody ‘health problems’.
But he left the work-site early to pick up her prescription anyway. Even though it meant they’d have to put in an extra day next week. Bloody woman. Should just dump her. Upgrade to a younger model. Like that skinny blonde pharmacist bustling out the back. Desmond might be getting on a bit, but women only cared about money, right? And he had plenty of that.
Ping-ling-ling.
While he waited, Desmond eyed the snot-nosed little boy sitting nearby, engrossed in his iPad.
“Wee-ooh!” the gadget screeched, “Justice-mode active!”
Sweet Lord, how he hated those… The iPad, and the brat. The mother was just as bad, glued to some tiktok trash while she rocked a pram.
Unleashing a long-suffering sigh, Desmond peered across the counter, wondering why it was taking so long to get those antibiotics.
Ding.
The automatic doors slid open as a shirtless man wearing a dirty beanie rushed in, eyes wild.
In came trouble. Meth-head, by the looks. Lean as cancer and just as dangerous, with a drug-addled brain pared back to savage psychosis.
The kid didn’t even look up, just kept swiping the screen with a snot-covered finger while his mother stared into tik-tok, lost in slack-jawed fascination.
“Oi!” the junkie shouted, just as the pharmacist finally returned. “Sudafed, ya bitch.
All of it. Now!” He cracked an ugly pistol against the glass counter.
Bloody hell! Desmond gaped while his balls retreated into his gut. Where’d he get that?
Tik-tok mummy was out of her chair, simultaneously dragging her pram away and crouching behind it. The pharmacist backed into a display of vitamins, knocking bottles to the floor. “We c-can’t access the drugs without a ‘script, sir,” she stammered, flinching. “There’s some cash in the till…”
Everything seemed to slow down, except Desmond’s palpitating heart. Beside him, the oblivious brat was still playing his damn tablet, and the screen began to flash.
Wee-ooh, wee-ooh! “LAPD! Drop your weapon!”
The crackhead spun, fast as a striking snake, gun thrust out like an accusing finger.
Bloody idiot, this isn’t LA!
Desmond moved by instinct, surging between them as the muzzle flared. An invisible sledgehammer slammed into his chest, dropping him on the cheap carpet, struggling to breath as his killer’s feet pounded away.
That stupid, innocent boy stood above him crying as he bled out, but strangely, he found that he couldn’t blame this on the kid.
Desmond was an arsehole, but he wasn’t a complete prick.
Simon Van Dyke
Right Left Write’s September prompt was Screenplay. New prompts are announced monthly February-November in QWC’s Pen & Pixel email newsletter.
Find out more about Right Left Write at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s September Prompt is Screenplay