Drabble 146 – Ventisonance

I’m not a very adventurous person. I don’t operate on whims; I’m a meticulous planner. I have to-do lists of to-do lists.

But that’s one of the many reasons I write. Writing, for me, is in part a means of exploring all of the things I would never do in real life. My characters might be rude or impulsive or cunning in ways that I’m not, precisely because I’m not those things. I enjoy fiction because it gives me freedom that real life doesn’t.

Sometimes that freedom is simple–I can rewrite a conversation that went poorly, for example. Other times it’s reimagining everything from the ground up, changing everything to suit me better.

In this case, it’s not really either. Here’s a drabble.

VENTISONANCE

(n.) from Latin ventus, for wind, and sonance, for sound.

The sound of wind.

He came in with a storm that shook the rafters and blew out transformers in six different area codes. Leather jacket, check. Sunglasses, despite the dark sky, check. A cigarette clenched between his teeth, check. Marina looked him up and down, watching a raindrop streak from his shoulder down to the edge of his jacket, where a strip of bare skin just above his jeans raised her eyebrows.

“You look like a bad idea,” she said.

He smirked. It was all boys like him could do.

She plucked the cigarette from his lips and shut the door in his face.