88 Words

WAKE-Conclusion

by George Potter.  Be sure to follow the Story Time link in Categories to read part one and part two! This is a fantastic short story-you'll be glad you read it!

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Lisa wished Dean would for the love of God stop humming.

He hummed all the time, and poorly. It usually took her an inordinate amount of time to recognize whatever tune he had chosen to mangle. It wouldn’t be so bad, she often supposed, if he would do it quietly. But no, like everything else Dean attempted, he went about the task with gusto, volume and an arrogant conceit.

Seventeen, by Winger, she realized with sudden surprise. Dear Jesus tap-dancing Christ, is that how he thinks the melody goes?

Dean was working on his fifth sausage, with little stabs into the stack of maple syrup and butter coated pancakes that dominated his platter. The sound of his enthusiastic chewing and the broken melody of 80’s hair-band pop merged with grunts of pleasure to form a teeth grindingly annoying cacophony.

Or so it seemed to her.

Lisa stared down at her own plate. One pancake. No butter, no syrup. A single scrambled egg white nestled up to it like a forlorn child seeking comfort from a mother. She would eat it, without enjoyment, and be hungry until an equally bland and unsatisfying lunch. Then more hours waiting for a plain and skimpy supper, then two hours to fall asleep and start the whole pathetic routine over again.

And all the while she’d watch Dean dine on most of her favorite foods. And say, without fail “Sorry, babe. Metabolism is metabolism. Can’t fight nature! Pass the butter, ok?”

And hum.

What the hell am I doing with this guy again?, she asked herself. They had met at a gym in January, where he worked as a personal trainer. Lisa was there for a new year’s resolution to lose 40 pounds.

WAKE - Part Two (of Three)

For those of you who missed yesterday's post, you will want to read it before carrying on here! This is Part Two of WAKE by my friend, George Potter. I call him G. You can too if you like. I adore this story.

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“How’s that steak, missy?” asked the old man, peering over the top of his magazine.

“Utterly perfect, hon! Just right. Thank you! And I’m picky!”

The old man, nodded. “My boy does the cooking. He’s picky too.”

“The sign of a good cook. You teach him?”

“No. His mother, rest her. She handled the cooking chores here from the day we opened till the day before she passed.”

She nodded, polite enough to refrain from offering condolences for a wound long healed.

“You…remind me of her. Somehow.” The old man said, sounding a little embarrassed at the admission.

“Oh?” she said, delighted by what she instantly took as a deep compliment.

“Not in looks, really.” he explained. “She was a blonde. But..well, she was a big gal too, y’know.” He actually blushed.

She just laughed, and waved his imminent apology away. “Hon, I know I’m big. I was a big baby, a big child, a big teenager and now I’m a big woman. That’s the facts. To deny that would…” she tapped her fork against the side of the plate, searching for the right words. ”...be denying reality. It would be the worst sort of lie. A lie told to myself.” She took a bite, chewed, savored it. “And if you can’t trust your own self to tell you the truth, you are asking for a life filled with lies. An artificial life. Does that make sense?”

Introducing Story Time with G!

Greetings, readers!

As you may or may not know, I have a writer friend with whom I am co-authoring a trilogy: The Answerback, The Devil's Rhyme Box & The Grabitall. I am lucky to be working with such a gifted scribe. I thought it would be fun to share some of his work with you all, a little bit at a time. He specializes in short fiction, which will be perfect for my new weekend Story Time posts! Yay, Story Time!

I would like you to meet George Potter, of no relation to Harry, and ten thousand times more of a wizard if you ask me. He can whip letters into words, words into sentences and sentences into thought-provoking stories just masterfully! I think you will enjoy WAKE, it is truly a gem.         

WAKE
by
George Potter

”Arrogance frowns, pride smiles.”
-Mason Cooley

(for CJ)

She walked into the café not as if she owned it, but as if she had no need to own it, or anything – being content in the ownership of herself.

As, in fact, she was.

She was a big woman, in the finest sense of that often abused word. Tall, broad shouldered, thick hipped, firmly packed into her tight denim jeans. Large breasted, and proudly so – the not quite silk fabric of her short sleeved blouse hugged and accentuated a chest neither flaunted nor shown apologetically.

She was big in her simplest presence. The eyes of the few customer and single counter person were immediately drawn to her, and met with a smile that seemed electrically lit from deep within – a smile that woke a slumbering beauty in a pretty face and transformed it into something almost breath-taking.

It is impossible for something so large and beautiful to move through the world without leaving a wake, and she did so as she walked purposefully through the café’s small dining room to the counter. In the wake of her passage, stirred like the movement of a perfume molecules through an antiseptic room, little things happened.