This piece of surrealism was penned for the weekly Unicorn Challenge to come up with up to 250 words in response to a photo prompt.
He knew they were following him. They knew that he knew they were following him. They thought it was important that he knew they were following him.
He came to a rapid halt at a roundabout. Leaping from the car, he ran off around the corner and into the forest.
They stopped and searched his car but found nothing to add to their knowledge of him or of where it might be. They didn’t try follow on foot because they didn’t know if he was armed this time and waiting to ambush them. They’d never known if he was armed or not or if he would ever ambush them. But they decided not to find out tonight. Besides, they didn’t think that was where it was.
…
They sat in their car and talked about this latest development. Clearly the situation was unsustainable. They couldn’t keep running around the countryside following every Tom, Dick or Harry looking for it. Was it actually important enough to devote their resources to finding it indefinitely? They decided, reluctantly but firmly, ‘No’.
…
When he realised they’d abandoned their chase, he was furious. How dare they do this? What was he supposed to do with it now?
When they’d driven away from the roundabout, he set off in pursuit of them. They knew he would do that. He knew that they would know he would do that.
So they sped up, just to make life interesting.
Six Crooked Highways 
It’s the chase that keeps ’em going. Or coming?
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Indeed (and sometimes both at the same time). 😉
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Insanely quirky and a bit all over the place which is somewhat disconcerting because I was able to follow the whole thing. Fun!
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Glad you enjoyed the confusion. 🙂
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Franz Kafka is alive and well and hiding out in Australia.
And he has grown a beard.
More than that, he’s doing the Unicorn Challenge.
Nice one, Doug.
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Thanks, Jenne. Jean-Paul Satire strikes again. 🙂
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I’m going round in circles; if they had followed him round the roundabout would they have caught up with him, or would he have caught up with them…
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Probably both, I think. It’s one of those co-dependent relationships. 🙂
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Follow me, follow you! Delightfully different, you had me looking over my shoulder!
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Well, Doug, that was an entertainingly roundabout way (groan!) to tell your tale.
More Paul Auster than Franz Kafka, I think, but I’m not about to cross literary swords with Jenne here.
I know that you know that she knows more than the rest of us know…
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The wonderful and sometimes overlooked Prunella Scales!
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Enjoyed the fun!
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Good story.
(I commented in a similar vein over at ceayr’s to effect of the different commonalities in cultures), in this case your roundabouts (borrowed from the mother country) are called (a) rotary here.
Fun exercise.
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Thanks, clark. Rotary/roundabout. Sounds like a circular argument to me. 😉
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Somehow I knew th add t you knew th as t I knew you were go in ng to write this…in a roundabout way! 😏
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Somehow I knew that you knew thst I knew you were going to write this…in a roundabout way! 😏
And yes, I hate autocorrect!
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🙂 That’s what roundabouts are in a way. Auto correct. 😉
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Mic drop! Boom! 😂
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