Ambush fiction

These are fictions, at least in that they haven't happened to me or anyone I know, not in this exact way. They're ambush fiction because each sprang into my mind with its tiny plotlet already fully deployed.

1. A long short story
For the first few years after their divorce it was squabbling about timetables for the kids until at last, to everyone’s relief, they settled into a tidy rhythm where he actually blossomed unexpectedly into a parent and became likeabale again, began to have friendly exchanges as they exchange the kids and so on. Her satisfaction with this unexpected resolution is blighted only when she remembers that the thing they fought most over during their marriage was whose work the kids were. She looks over the tea-cups at the new girlfriend’s belly and bites down a moment of bitterness.

2. On principal
‘But why exactly must you search me officer?’ she says, good-humoured. She has nothing on her and plenty of valid reasons to have visited there so she reckons she can get away with making a fuss for a change. ‘The law states,’ she steps away from the policewoman, ‘the law states you can only search me if you have a search warrant, one, two at official road block, or three if you’ve got good reason to think I’ve committed a crime. Full stop.’ The guy stares at her a second, conceals a moment of confusion by quipping, ‘So now you’re a lawyer?’ She steps away from the policewoman. ‘I know my rights,’ she says reasonably, just loud enough to catch attention. She is radiating a calm, innocent thirst for justice, buoyed by her sure triumph. He compresses his lips for just a moment. Decides to remain patient. “Ok then, three,” he quips, gesturing to the policewoman. People are stopping. She and the policewoman dance a few more steps of an odd waltz. After a moment she registers what he means by three and seizes the opening to chirp: “What crime?” relishing how foolish they’ll look when their forced illegal search turns into a lesson on rights, here on this busy street. “Tell me what crime?” The policewoman has grasped her wrist. Supper is waiting, it’s time to submit to the search and claim the prize. ‘What is it you suspect me of?’ He forms an answer, pauses, and abruptly twists his mouth. ‘A lawyer must speak to a court,” he quips, sourly. He reaches for her wrist. ‘Get in the van,’ and, making sure she can hear the full stop this time, ‘Get in the van.’

3. A short long story
“What are we doing here?”
She doesn’t hear him right the first time. When she gets him, she leans back. “Well. Hanging out, I suppose. Having fun. Becoming friends I suppose.” She has to lean in to repeat it and this time she abbreviates it to ‘having fun’.
But she knows what he really means, takes pity as he measures his reply and rushes to say: “I mean. It’s not like you’ve. Made much of a move in all this time.” She pauses as if to look inside herself, shrugs with her face: “And apparently I haven’t been moved to, either.”
He is silent for a moment, searching for a way to marshall hope through this carnage. She waits, but she’s already moving to the beat of the warm crowd of excited dancers behind them.

4. The end.
In that time my parents and their friends began to spend the hour in the stands before their beloved soccer bickering about how to cheer for this particular match. At first they agreed to always support the underdog. Very soon that became booing any side that scored. Then someone declared that negative and discouraging, which won the day against the counter argument that the point was to be negative and discouraging, of competitive tendencies, but in any case then they tried choosing arbitrary players from each side, and so it went on, and on and on. The weirdest thing was that they weren’t the only ones doing it, as you scanned the stadium you’d see these little knots of people in amongst the regular fans. Anyway that was soccer, before we started to play our own way.