LAST HOPE

You’re my last hope, she said.

I’d answered the frantic knock on my door with trepidation. It was, after all, past midnight. I peered through the narrow gap afforded by the security chain, saw a woman and behind her two smaller shapes, children maybe.

At a loss, I said, why me?

Yours is the last house, the last door.

She wasn’t wrong. The street was a dead end terminating in the high brick wall of the neighbouring factory.

Can we come in? she said, pleadingly. They are after us, you’re our last chance.

There seemed an urgency, time to consider options was limited, and emotions crowded out rational thought. Curiosity - what was behind this panicked approach to a stranger’s door? And anxiety - what would I be letting myself in for? And, admit it, excitement - was my humdrum existence about to get jolted out of its recent torpor.

Or should I just close the door and leave them to their fate?

 

I shut the door, unhooked the chain, and beckoned them in.

 

[Flash fiction - 23 July 2026]