At last, Alfred could relax. His old wristwatch told him it was past two am. He could finally head for his room. The dinner party went well and all the guests had already retired to their respective rooms at around midnight, but as a butler, Alfred had had a few things to oversee before calling it a night.

Despite the late hour, one of the guests had complained that she had found a fly in the pitcher in her guestroom. Mrs. Murphy, a widow, was a regular guest and a good friend of his master and had never missed the gathering held at the manor. At some point today, Alfred had noticed that Mrs. Murphy had been trying to seek his attention whenever possible, asking for this and that. She had the reputation of being a drama queen, so he tried not to dwell too much on it. Nevertheless, it took some effort to shake her off every time he was asked for his service, taking a bit of a toll on him each time since he didn’t want to upset her, either.

Therefore, Alfred was not surprised to be summoned to her room because of a fly in the pitcher but allowed himself to heave a sigh before he went to Mrs. Murphy's room with another pitcher. He gave his sincere apologies and listened to her endless chatter that had nothing to do with the fly in the pitcher just to compensate for the mishap. She managed to take 20 minutes of his time before bidding him goodbye.

After making sure everything was fine in the manor, Alfred retired to his room with weary steps. He took off his jacket and waistcoat and hung them in the wardrobe. Then, he sat down on his small bed with a groan. He hadn’t had the chance to rest after lunch, and his dogs were barking. He took off his shoes and just laid on the bed, knowing that he should get up again and take the rest of the clothes off and wash, but he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Crowd Story challenge by @Jana: Write a story containing these words.

• drama

• fly

• dog

Crowd Story #1 is here if you're interested.

(The picture is by Mike Smith in Unsplash)