Sweet Saturday Sample

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As retailers gear up for another Valentine's Day I thought I'd share the original, sadly discarded, opening to my first Valentine novella, The Wrong Target.

Every so often there are days that start badly, and continue to go on downhill, and today I’m having one of those days. 

I often think humans assume Cupid’s life is one big laugh.  Well, I’m here to tell everyone it’s not.  And if I get it wrong this time, ‘They’, as in ‘the Powers that Be’ have threatened to remove my wings.

My boss instructed me to target this guy Sam Brown. “And make sure you don’t screw-up this time,” he said.

Of course, I blame Murphy’s Law for missing my target last year. They weren’t too pleased with the outcome.  The guy married the wrong woman. So you see, I had to get it right this time. 

 Until last year I used my own discretion, unfortunately because of my error, this year’s Valentine orders came down from Above. I’m Cupid, you see, and I’m supposed to shoot arrows at the good folk down on Earth so people will find their true love. But, as I said, today day started out bad and went downhill faster than an avalanche.

“You are to target Ms. Blackberry. I mean, come on, we all know a Blackberry is a kind of phone-thingy humans can’t do without these days, don’t we?  So I asked. after all, I don’t want to go targeting the wrong person, do I?

“This Ms. Blackberry, where do I find her?”  Well, you can imagine my surprise when They told me she’d be in school. For a moment I couldn’t help wondering whether we were targeting children this year.

“No, she’s the headmistress at this elite co-ed school in the south of England.”

I grinned. Sitting at her desk all day, she’d be an easy target.

“And her soul-mate?”  I asked.

“Sam Brown, the English teacher.”

I mean, I had my bow all set up, the arrow sighted on Sam’s heart, and what happens? This stranger storms into the Blackberry’s office and walks right in front of Sam just as I let my arrow fly… and I hit the wrong target… again.

The guy was as mad as a hornet before my arrow hit, but boy, did he blow right after. I thought he’d take off into the stratosphere.

You can imagine the thought of returning home didn’t appeal to me, but hanging around that office, as I’m meant to, appealed even less to me. Believe me, I skedaddled as fast as my tiny wings would carry me. They would have my hide anyway!

So you see, against all the rules, I didn’t hang around to find out what happened. Perhaps one day, if I ever meet one of you, someone can tell me.

~Cupid~

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