Short Story #62: Texture

Prompt from The Write-Brain Workbook: Write a short story including the phrase "I hate the texture of". (Word count: 258)

* * * * * “It’s been too many years, Amanda. I’ve missed having you for tea.”

Too many years? It’s barely been one. And tea—where I do I start?

“Thank you, Aunt Catherine. How is Uncle Cliff?”

I’m too busy calculating how long until Parker’s arrival to listen to her, but I nod attentively. Fifteen minutes and I can beg off, hopefully before tea is served.

“And your daughter, Dorcas?”

“Weren’t you listening, dear? I said Dorcas went off fishing with your uncle. They’ll be gone till half seven.”

Drat! Caught out. “Oh, Dorcas. I thought you said Doris.”

“Doris who? I don’t know any Doris. I’m sure Clifford doesn’t either.”

Stall, stall, stall. “And, you, Aunt Catherine. You’ve been well?”

“Oh, look! Janie has tea laid out in the folly. Come along.”

Oh, well. Maybe it will just be biscuits....

No such luck. “Oh, you must try the sandwiches, they’re Janie’s speciality.”

She pronounces it speh-cee-AL-i-tee. Five syllables instead of the necessary three. But that’s not why I hate the concoction of cream cheese, pistachios, pickles, and lime zest. And it’s not the flavor, either, which is surprisingly tolerable. I hate the texture of cream cheese. Gritting it up with nut and pickle doesn’t change its underlying smooth thickness.

“Mmm...so good,” I lie. My cellphone rings. My Parker. My savior.

“Sorry, darling,” he says. “Hung up in town for an hour. Give Aunt Kate my love.”

“But—”

“I owe you one.” Click.

You owe me so many.

–30–

Short Story #61: Shark!

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

* * * * * Greg wasn’t annoyed that sharks had learned to speak, but that they had a Jamaican accent. And really, it wasn’t that so much as somehow they learned the word thing as ganja and vice-versa.

“Ay, man, hand me that ganja,” was something S’tevo said to him several times daily. Cops weren’t supposed to say that to each other.

“How’d it go?” Greg asked, picking his partner up in front of the courthouse.

S’tevo shrugged his neck; his hydroxinator collar rose and fell. “The usual. Fool lawyer got me say ganja tree time.”

“Perp walked?”

“Nah, trap by di evidence against him. Judge S’lavaston was not fooled by lawyer tricks.”

What the sharks lacked in vocabulary skills, they made up for in jurisprudence. The Great Mutation of 2019 was a boon for the side of law and order.

“Well, congrats on getting another dirty dog off the street. Lunch is on me.”

They stopped at a deli near Preston Park. Greg munched falafel; S’tevo, hovering vertically, flipped mice into the air, snatched them mid-descent.

“Want di last one?” S’tevo asked.

“Sorry, not my thing.”

S’tevo shot him a surprised look, then realized what he’d meant. “Not your ganja. No worries. More for me.”

Greg gestured at the corner of S’tevo’s mouth. “Got a little tail there.” S’tevo slurped it down.

As they got back in the cruiser, the radio squawked: “All units, robbery on Fifth. Witnesses say it’s Pomeranians. Be advised, subjects are armed and possibly rabid.”

They rolled.

–30–

Short Story #60: Limited Engagement

Write a short story that could have the title "The Limited Engagement." (Word count: 259)

“Sir, would you put your cellphone away, please?”

Carl looked at the usher. The symphony actually had ushers. Who knew? “What? No, I’m not recording.” He showed the screen to the usher: symfny dznt suk who nu. “I’m texting a friend how good this is.”

The usher frowned. “It’s not appropriate to text during the performance.”

Carl looked around. A few people were scowling his way, but most were focused on the musicians. Several had their eyes closed, gently nodding their heads in time to the music. One elderly lady was obviously asleep. “I’m not disturbing anyone.”

The usher persisted. “It’s not appropriate.”

“Fine, I’ll go to the lobby.”

“The foyer. And it’s not appropriate to leave during the performance.”

Carl put his phone away. The usher stalked back up the aisle.

On the stage a woman was straddling a big violin. She sounded alright, Carl supposed, if you were into that kind of thing.

He looked at his program. “One night only: Darleigh Karaminsky, Cellist.” He tried to read the awards and citations she’d received, but between the minuscule typeface and low light in the concert hall, he couldn’t make them out. He fished his phone out of his pocket in order to shine its light on the page, but first looked over his shoulder. The usher stood in the semi-darkness beside the exit door. Carl was pretty sure the usher was staring at him.

He put his phone away, slumped in his seat, and waited for the intermission.

–30–

Short Story #59: Ice Cream!

Prompt: Write a short story involving ice cream. (Word Count: 258)

* * * * * “Auuggghhhh!” Earl clutched his forehead.

“Ice cream headache?” Mindy asked. Earl nodded in silent agony.

“Remember on Saturday Night Live where the guy predicted annoyances in people’s lives, like ice cream headaches? Who was that?”

Pain receding, Earl said, “Christopher Walken.”

“Yeah, that was so random.”

Earl wanted to say it wasn’t random, that Walken had starred in The Dead Zone where he could foretell disasters, that the SNL skit had been a parody of the Stephen King novel/movie. He knew Mindy’s reaction, though, would be to repeat, “yeah, so random,” as if he hadn’t said anything.

He didn’t have to be psychic to know that. Whenever someone around Mindy got an ice cream headache—or a Slurpee brain freeze—she brought up the skit. Better to return to his Butter Brickle than succumb to repeated history.

Earl and Mindy walked through Haskell Park in silence. Earl suspected Mindy knew he had a ring box in his pocket, had had it there for a week. Unfortunately, every time he got the nerve to propose, one of her “quirks” would emerge, giving him cold feet. If it wasn’t being incapable of assimilating new information into her worldview, it was saying irregardless or pasketti, or braying like a donkey when she laughed too hard. He knew he had flaws; maybe they kept her from proposing to him.

He licked his ice cream cone, almost knocked the scoop loose, woofed it into his mouth, felt the pressure building in the center of his forehead. “Auuuuuuughhhhhhhh!”

–30–

Short Story #58: STAAR EOC

Texas has just released last year's state exams; the ninth graders had the following as their short story prompt: Write a story about taking care of something or someone (the prompt was accompanied with a black and white picture of a young boy with his arm around a calf's neck). The prompt was followed with: Be sure that your story is focused and complete and that it has an interesting plot and engaging characters. (Using the image as the source of the story is not required, and for my students, discouraged.) We'll see how I do. (Word Count: 257)

* * * * * “Hsssst!” Sidney Tuna nodded Vinnie the Mook over. “Got a job for ya, Vin.”

Despite his nickname, Vin was a good guy. Not bright, but usually reliable. When plausible deniability was key, Vinnie the Mook was your go-to guy.

“You know Two-Bills Tommy?” Sid asked. Vin did. “Need ya to take care of him. You know what I mean by ‘take care of,’ doncha?”

“Sure, sure. Taaaake caaaare offffffff.” Spittle sprayed from Vin’s lips as he over-pronounced the final word.

“He’s up at his place in Oyster Bay. Do the job tonight. I’ll drop by ten-fifteen.”

“Sure, sure, Sid. Thanks.”

Vin stopped at a Wal-Mart on his way out to Long Island. The items in his cart included an extension cord, duct tape, corkscrew, butane lighter, nine-inch knife. On impulse, he picked up a spatula, too. He laughed, setting the bags in the footwell of his Impala. Ol’ Two-Bills wouldn’t see this coming.

When Sid arrived at a quarter-after-ten, he was surprised to hear gunfire coming from the back of Two-Bills’ house. He was more surprised when he saw the Mook and Tommy sitting on the deck eating omelets, drinking champagne, and watching Cagney in White Heat on the TV that had been carted outdoors.

“Hsssst!” He called Vin into the house. “I told you to take care of him.”

“I did. Took care of him real good. He’d never seen the movie before.”

The six gunshots from Sid’s pistol blended perfectly with the film’s soundtrack.

–30–

Short Story #57: McSweeney!

Prompt (Courtesy McSweeney's Internet Tendency; caution: contains dangerous words): Write a story that ends with the following sentence: Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon. (Word count: 259)

* * * * * Crossing the desert on a horse with no name sounds fine in song, but long before she reached the coast, Debra Witt understood differently. Running third in a field of eight after crossing the Strait into Morocco, she’d grabbed the reins of the first animal she saw, paid its owner, headed for Tunis.

“Shoulda grabbed a camel,” she told the horse after being passed twice by competitors. In response, the horse, a proud-looking black stallion, slowed down.

Slowness of pace wasn’t her greatest worry, not after she saw the bugs eating the horseflesh where the saddle rubbed the skin raw. Coming to a dead stop—equal parts stop and dead—before reaching Tunis, lay heaviest on Debra’s mind. She purchased another saddle blanket at a bedouin camp to minimize the wear and tear to the horse.

Passing through Constantine, the horse had begun to stagger and smell. Rules of the Phileas Fogg 5000, the annual race around the Mediterranean Sea, prohibited competitors from changing horses midstream, or mid-desert: you were stuck with your choice of conveyance until the next leg of the race.

Five miles outside of Tunis she fell into seventh place. The horse fell for the first time. Debra got it to its feet; they staggered on.

Just inside the city limits she saw her salvation and lay down to catch her breath. Four hours later she awakened to cheers for the last-place racer’s approach. Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.

–30–

Short Story #56: Aliens!

Prompt: Write a short story about extraterrestrial life/aliens. (Word count: 259)

* * * * * The house shook like a freight train was rumbling through the backyard.

“What the—” Brian grabbed his soda from the TV tray as it toppled, sending Cheetos across the living room. In the kitchen, something shattered.

Denise paused the TiVo; Rod Serling halted mid-intro. “Earthquake?”

“Don’t think so.”

The lights went out.

“So much for hour 18 of the Twilight Zone marathon.” Denise didn’t sound overly disappointed.

Brian shuffled across the room, careful not to crush Cheetos into the carpet. Retrieving his keys from the hook, he said, “But that was ‘Maple Street.’ One of the best.” He shined his keychain light below his chin, campfire/Bela Lugosi-style. “Monsters were due on Maple Street.”

“Quit it. Check the backyard.”

Brian slipped his shoes on before entering the kitchen. “Hey, that serving tray your folks gave us, the one shaped like Oahu. We don’t need to send a thank-you anymore.”

A foot-wide ditch ran across the backyard, fence to fence. The fences themselves were fine, but Brian could see the ditch cut into the next yards.

“What was the episode about?”

Brian walked onto the lawn. Water bubbled into the bottom of the ditch. He hoped it was water. “Aliens experimented on a neighborhood. Turned the power out, blocked radio transmissions. Eventually, the humans got paranoid, turned against each other.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

Denise, who’d been unenthusiastic throughout the marathon did sound fascinated.

Brian turned the flashlight on her face? “Who are you? What’ve you done with my wife?”

–30–