Little Red Riding Hood

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Little Red Riding Hood

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there will, on occasion, be elements of supposition, particularly as the Mother’s next drug dose proved fatal due to contaminated cutting agents, but only as to motives because the main thrust of the Crown’s case is solidly grounded in that most irrefutable of scientific evidence, a clear DNA match. The real tragedy of this young, desperate woman’s actions on the day in question is that she presumably intended that one of the many people who commonly use the path every day would see her abandoned child and take her to the authorities, where social services would subsequently become responsible for her welfare. There are clear signs, warm coat, scarf, the now infamous story book and so on, that she had tried to prepare her daughter for a wait in the morning air to the best of her limited abilities. It is safe to say, however, that whatever demons may have been pursuing her during her advanced state of withdrawal, she can little have imagined that the daytime woodlands of rural England harboured a beast far more dangerous than that contained within the pages of a fairy tale; the defendant who sits before you today.”

200 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Lillie McFerrin's Five Sentence Fiction - Alone