I wrote this story in ten minutes during a recent meeting of the Uxbridge Writers' Circle. I used the 'prompt' of a bookmark decorated with pictures of rainbow-coloured sheep. No time for editing!
Gordie couldn't bear it. He heard his father talking on his smart phone, arranging for the shearers to come the following week. Gordie's stomach lurched as images of struggling sheep and the noise of electric shears pummeled his senses. It wasn't fair. It was bad enough that the mothers had lost their lambs. Instinctively, he knew better than to ask what happened to these cute, playful balls of soft fuzz. He didn't want to know, because he knew there'd be nothing he could do about it. But, this was the last straw - taking the sheep's coats off without their agreement, despite their obvious protests.
He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Surely he could do something about this. He gaze absent-mindedly at the rainbow he'd painted on the ceiling. He loved the optimism of the rainbow with its promise of a pot of gold at its end. That's when he got the idea.
He rounded up all the spray cans of paint he could find - in the basement, the garage and the barns. He didn't have quite a full array of the colours of the rainbow, but pretty close. And when the sheep were in the barn at night, he crept down the stairs and reclaimed the cans. He was careful to shake the rattly things out of earshot of the sheep, and then, very slowly and calmly, sprayed all of them with each colour.
This is bound to stop them, he thought. Rainbow sheep - who's going to want rainbow wool?
His father was livid, but the upshot was he got out of the sheep rearing business and turned to potato farming instead. And from that day on, his father showed more respect for his son.
Vicky Earle Copyright 2019
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