Minute 28

 Minute 28 – a crime story (by Naemi Wünch)

There he was again. He stood very still, as if he was preparing for a fight. Well, maybe he was. His hat made it impossible to see his expression. What was he waiting for?

Agent Russo and Special Agent Todd waited in silence for any movement or a sign that something might be going on. Standing behind the curtains of their surveillance flat, they watched his every movement.

“I told you it´s a ruse. Someone tipped us off to have a diversion.” Todd said.

“Let´s just wait for another minute. Maybe we will see something. You don´t know if it is a ruse or not” Russo answered. “It could also be true. Look how suspicious this man looks. I´m sure he is up to something”. He peered out the window, trying to spot someone else on the street.

Todd rolled his eyes. “You just want to believe that some major crime is going to happen just outside our window. I´m telling you, while we´re waiting some bank is being robbed somewhere else, or maybe someone tries to kill the governor. And all that, while we sit in a room and wait for a crime that is not going to happen”.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Lady Margaret sat in the back of her limousine. The driver had stopped the car at this address and now she waited for her contact. Where was he? He was running late again. This delivery was supposed to be very quick and without arousing any suspicious looks. Just a delivery boy who hands a letter into a dark car and leaves. But now they had already waited for about ten minutes and if the message was not going to arrive soon, Lady Margaret would leave for good. It was too dangerous. The message contained high risk information. People had already lost their lives for it. She would not be one of them.

Suddenly the door opened. A hand reached inside and handed her a small black box. Lady Margaret took the box, the door closed, the car left.

Somewhere, a few blocks away, the agents sat at the window and waited. The man still stood there. Ready, tense, apprehensive. Nothing happened.

Then, a small movement, a terrified face, a scream, and a deafening bang. Flickering lights, a fire, smoke everywhere and everything went dark at once. This was not a ruse, not a diversion, that was it.

Explanatory Note:

In minute 28 different people were seen and I thought it looked like a crime story. They all looked suspicious, although that might also have been the music in the background. I decided to write a story that was supposed to connect these scenes and the people in it. But I wanted to only write a short excerpt of what could be a whole book or a longer crime story. The reason was that the film minute also only showed an excerpt of something larger. The viewer does not know where the people came from and what they did before or after the scene.

So, I wrote a crime story with people that are not really introduced to the reader but are just suddenly there. Also, it ends very open and without indications where the story might lead or what would happen next. That way I wanted to reflect the scene from the movie. At first, I also put different music behind the scenes, but later decided against it, because it took something away from the original effect the scene had.

To me, the crime story I wrote connected the different scenes in the film minute with each other, even though they might not even belong together.