Challenge Block
Stacked With: Hogwarts
Individual Challenges: In a Flash (Y); Click Bait It; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux
Prompts: Sandwich (auction); No character names (Insane Prompts)
Word count: 381
The sandwich sat on the bench, waiting to be eaten. It had been made earlier in the day, and subsequently abandoned when the maker had rushed out of the house. The bread was soggy from tomato and cucumber slices. A knife sat next to it, ready to cut the bread and fillings in half. It looked as though someone had merely walked away for a moment instead of abandoned everything and flown out of the house like a hurricane.
The front door opened and a man came trudging into the kitchen with his shoulders slumped. He collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs and groaned, slinking down until the chair back rested at his neck and halted his movement. The sandwich remained where it was, slowly drying out as it sat uneaten.
There was silence in the room for several long minutes before the man spoke. "Why?" he asked the air (and, in a way, the sandwich, seeing as it was there). "Why betray them? We thought…"
His words trailed off and it was silent in the room once more. Slowly, the man sat back up and then placed his head in his hands, balancing his elbows on his knees. His shoulders started shaking slightly as sobs were finally let loose.
They were quiet sobs; the crying of one who had often suppressed the noise to avoid drawing attention to themselves. The sandwich did nothing as the man sobbed. The cucumber was now almost completely dried out. With a great sigh, the man rubbed his eyes and sat up, straightening his shoulders.
His eyes landed on the uneaten sandwich and another sigh escaped him—though this one held less heart-broken emotion laced through it. If sandwiches could perk up, the one sitting on the bench would have as the man approached it. Was it finally going to be eaten?
The answer was no, it soon found out as it was allowed to fall into the rubbish bin. The bread fell apart and the fillings fell out the neat piles they had been stacked in. The individual parts of what had once been a sandwich lay atop the rest of the rubbish mournfully, never fulfilling their purpose of being nourishment in the form of fillings wedged in between two pieces of bread.
