It Could Happen to You

by Simon Stratton

A young girl is walking home along a road and it's night-time and it's raining. A car pulls up ahead of her. She opens the door and the driver looks friendly, so she gets in. Her wet clothes dull the leather of the passenger seat and the driver frowns. She says, "Thanks for giving me a lift home" and he says "You're lucky," she says, "Why?" and he says, "You were polite, the last person I gave a lift to was not so polite, so I had to kill them," and she laughs, but he says, "No seriously, their body's still in the boot," and this time she doesn't laugh, but he smiles and they spend the remainder of the drive home in silence. When he pulls up to her house she says, "Cheers dad, try not to be so late picking me up from hockey next time," and waves him goodbye.

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Simon Stratton, author of More Childhood Memories, lost his MA in Creative Writing in a curry fight.