u/ThePollionian

For forty years, George carried a brass key that opened nothing he owned, and tonight it was lost.

He returned to O’Malley’s where the bartender dangled a key as if George disappointed him. It was a steel key, not a brass key, and its teeth were sharp rather than worn.

George thanked the bartender and walked home past his father’s old house whose lock this key also did not open and paused there to put the key in his pocket.

(Note: the exercise challenge was to write a story in exactly 80 words)