Friday
In 500 words or less, write a flash that takes place around a Thanksgiving table. Must include these words: “puddle,” “song,” “ecstasy,” “bondage,” and “deadline.”
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From Ara
November 26, 2010 at 7:53 am
When the Apocalypse happened, Papa was in the midst of placing a fluttering old-man-type kiss on Mom’s cheek. The dining table, seating ten, was laden with turkey and curry and all the family’s favourite foods, except for the lonely puddle of cranberry sauce that nobody liked. My youngest sister was crouched in front of the oven, peering at the warm bubbling pie through the little oven door. Gramma had dozed off again, despite the tea — Freddie King always had that kind of effect on her, and Aunt May had taken to putting that song on after every turkey dinner because Aunt May made the stuffing, and not the way Gramma used to make it.
That’s exactly how it happened. And I’m making a cut-and-stick-on photo collage — it’ll cover up two entire walls in the Garret — to remind me, how lucky I’d been that my family had been safe and together and happy when the Apocalypse happened, and I with them too and not behind the dead-line.
Scissors snip out the last bit of head from the picture, just as Cory bounces in, making pew-pew sounds and pointing his fingers everywhere. He likes to play Secret Agent when he’s bouncing — speaks in a British accent and everything — and nobody has had the heart to tell him that the Bond Age is over.
The room’s supposed to be a fully functional kitchen — that’s why I chose it for my collage — though we could never turn off the waste disposal in the sink.
“Hey dude,” I say, “come look. I found a pic of my dad.”
Cory always does what I tell him, because I always give him my ecstasy ration. He likes ecstasy more than iodine — everyone behind the dead-line does — so his hair is half fallen out. He peers over my shoulder.
“Dude! Your dad was Marilyn Manson?”
I blink, look at the picture more closely. Looks like Papa to me, so I shrug. “Sure.”
From Adam Cutter
November 26, 2010 at 12:43 pm
It was Arthur Tea and his two children, Gabriel and Kuai, the neighbor man Zenith Thomas, the old Chinese man Liu that the twins had come to know as their grandfather, and a traveler named Scoffield huddled close about the little table. Arthur had always tried his best to make Thanksgiving a memorable day for his children since they had never met their mother and he felt it important to create lasting memories for them. Outside, in the city of Erie, PA, it was snowing. Nothing settled, just melted into little puddles in the streets. It was still cold, and the coal burning stove worked overtime. First they would eat, then they would adjourn to the living room for a song or two on the piano and a sort of raucous ecstasy would overtake them all. At least that was the intention. Things rarely live up to intention.
Arthur had initially intended for a 12 o’clock deadline for the feast, but already the clock had won. The meal would be late. He smiled and tried to keep up conversation. The boys’ attention was waning. They had begun their own brand of infighting. And Arthur felt trapped in the sort of societal bondage that one accepts when designing a social event. Scoffield wanted to talk about his travels, mostly, asking from time to time what Arthur had done in his earlier years. Zenith, who knew little about Arthur’s past wanted to hear about these stories but found himself getting frustrated with the interruption of the traveler. Grandpa Liu stayed mostly quiet but was silently judging the host.
That was when the roof caved in. It creaked a bit, as it always had. Such an old house cannot be expected to stand forever. Suddenly it all crashed down, around the guests and their table. No one was hurt at all. In fact, not one person left their seat. One second there was a roof, and the next they were waiting for their Thanksgiving dinner in the great outdoors. The boys, of course, were wonderfully pleased and ran about chasing each other in the rubble. Arthur thought to check on the food but could not find the stove anymore. After considering this a moment, he thought it best to evacuate as the ex-house would be a fire hazard.
This was, of course, when the famous Brothers Tea found the treasure of Marcus Dorwellier. In fact, it was Kuai who tripped over it, the little iron box filled to the brim with Aztec gold. He pulled it out of the nook in which it was crammed, once the kitchen wall, and showed it to his father. Arthur opened it and gleefully declared that they would all go to the Great Stag for their Thanksgiving dinner.
Intention is one thing. Joyful calamity is another.
From Joanna Leigh Simon
November 27, 2010 at 2:40 am
love these stories!
From Dawn.
December 2, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Great stories. 🙂