Short Story #41: Coward!

Prompt: (via Fast Fiction) Write a story about a coward. (Word count: 257)

* * * * * “What’re you going to write about?” the muse asked.

He looked up from his laptop, squinted. “I’m thinking something about Noel Coward, but...”

She propped herself up on the back of his club chair. “What’s stopping you?”

“Well,” he said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “I don’t really know anything about Noel Coward, and it doesn’t seem to be the intent of the prompt.”

“Research?”

“I don’t really want to know anything about Noel Coward. Nothing against him, but I’m tired and I’ve made it this far without knowing....”

The muse slid into the chair, lolling her head over the armrest nearest his desk. “Whine, whine, whine. So instead of researching, you’re going to write this conversation as your story for the night.” Speaking from this position it looked like she was talking out of her forehead. The writer cringed.

“Over halfway there. I must say, you’ve helped immensely. Couldn’t’ve done it without you.”

“Imagine what you could do if you really tried, instead of writing this nonsense.”

“Please sit up. I can’t have a conversation with you when it looks like you’re talking out of your forehead.”

“Poor you,” she said, sitting up. “You could have started anything: battlefield deserter, nervous almost-fiancee, frightened wheelman, Noel Coward—”

“Writer plagued by self-doubt.”

“Might as well just say ‘writer.’ But those who go beyond transcriptionists face their fears.”

He sighed. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it.”

–30–

Short Story #29: Shortception

Prompt: Write a short story about writing a short story. (Word count: 259)

* * * * * B.F. Thomas drummed his keyboard.

kljdff ljsdio skxc

“Good as anything I’ve written today,” he said to nobody.

“Excuse me,” Deirdre, his muse, said, offended at being called nobody. “At 11:34 you wrote: ‘Jeffries returned from the cupboard with anchovies for the cat and self-loathing for himself.’ Much better than ‘kljdff ljsdio skxc’ ... ow, my throat.”

Thomas ignored her. It had been good, even halfway his, but that was hours ago. “I need a break,” he announced, rising from his chair.

Deirdre pushed him back. “You’re fighting the story. And me. Purge your self-loathing on the page.”

“I don’t loathe myself. I’m disappointed I lack success.”

“That’s not it.” Deirdre filled a glass with absinthe from a flask she kept concealed in her gown.

“You won’t lower my resolve, drinking that.”

She downed it in a shot. “Won’t I?”

“I loathe you.”

“Halfway there.” Deirdre sipped green nectar directly from the flask.

“I loathe I need you. Ste— You-know-who doesn’t need a muse. What’s-her-face, neither.”

“Sure?” She sipped again, floated onto the chaise longue. “I could tell you stories...”

“Really?”

“You-know-who’s on his sixth. We can’t stand him. What’s-her-face plies hers with butterscotch pudding, otherwise she’d never write again.”

Thomas thought a moment, cracked his fingers.

Jeffries nudged the cat, slid an anchovy down his throat. Not bad. He helped himself to the rest, left the self-loathing to the cat who was better equipped to deal with existential disappointment anyway.

–30–