During 2018’s A-Z Challenge, we wrote the first draft of “The November Deadline” and to celebrate that this is now (finally) out with beta readers, we’ll be producing a daily piece of micro-fiction linked to it – some prequel, some containing a detail not included in the story, some snippets from sequels currently being written.

Mike hunched into her coat. It was not the most pleasant of days, and whilst not cold exactly, the wind was whipping the mizzle about. She really didn’t want to be here, but Tink had been so shocked when she’d said that she’d never seen the point of rugby that he’d insisted they come to a match. She was beginning to wonder whether this determination was motivated by a desire for better seats though. It was not as though there were a great deal of women here.
“Oh! I say, that was rather good! Positively balletic!”
“That would be a line-out, bach.” Tink gave her a dirty look.
A little later, a nippy fly-half received the ball and managed to dodge amongst the opposition, making a great deal of headway until he was eventually tackled.
“That was very fluid – almost like he was dancing a tango or something.”
Neither Mike nor Tink was very happy by the end. Mike felt she’d wasted an afternoon, and Wales drew 3 all.
© 2021, David Jesson & Debra Carey
3-all is a pretty dull game of rugby! I was reminded of Le Carre by this – he used rugby games at private schools in his novels on occasion.
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Agreed! I couldn’t find an analysis of the match (although I didn’t look too hard!) but certainly not the kind of game that you want to use to encourage someone into the game!
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