Hanna- 100 Word Scene

Hanna sat at the dinner table with Beth and her father. Three people at a rectangular table was an awkward number, always left an open space that should have been filled. When Graham visited he filled that space.

“How was school?”

The perfunctory question came from her father, too tired from a long day to come up with something a little more original. They were the first words he’d spoken to her since arriving home. Beth had called her to dinner.

“Fine,” she answered, putting as little thought into her answer as he had the question. “It was fine.”

Hanna- Setting

Hanna stood alone in her kitchen. The window above the sink let bright light stream in, illuminating the dishes that had been left there from breakfast. The counters were clear and bare of any food or utensils. The cabinet doors were all shut tight, except for the one with the crooked door that hung off kilter from the rest.

Hanna sank into one of the wooden chairs around the table. It stood straight and sturdy with a stiff back that she couldn’t comfortably lean against. The table was covered in a blue tablecloth and the cereal box from her breakfast hadn’t been put away yet.

No one had been there since she’d left that morning and it was late afternoon. Hanna glanced toward the refrigerator, the only part of the room with any kind of personality. It was covered in magnets, some hers from her childhood and some belonging to her older stepbrother who lived across the country. There were pictures too, but only one of the whole family together. It had been taken at the wedding four years before. Graham had been twenty and he had his hands on twelve year old Hanna’s shoulders. Beth and her father stood on either side of them and all were smiling. A seashell magnet obscured part of Beth’s dress.

Sighing, Hanna stood. She needed to clean out the sink before anyone else came home.