Friday 13th One Day Late

                       

It was Saturday, 14th August.  Everyone in the village of Henlu was breathing a sigh of relief.  Yesterday had come and gone.  History had shown that something tragic usually occurred every Black Friday.  In fact, that was why whenever the thirteenth of the month fell on a Friday, it was called Black Friday.

                                                           

Well, the thirteenth had gone and nothing tragic had happened.  Very few people had left their homes - even to go to work.  No one had gone to the beach and the school in the village had been closed. The precautions taken had worked.  The headlines of the tabloid read “Black Friday - No Terrors”.  As a result everything had returned to normal.
                                               

Halfway through the Saturday morning, disaster struck.  The fire razed four houses to the ground and extensively damaged two more.  A total of eighteen people was left homeless.  The Sunday headline blazed, “Friday 13th One Day Late”.  A tiny hand and a match were the cause.

                                            

                                                     Stewart Russell © 1999