WHAT CAN I SAY?

I didn’t take anything. I’m waiting for a friend of mine.

Yeah, I have a wrench under my coat.

No, I don’t have a receipt for it. It just looks like one of yours.

So you’re stuck with me. How long does this usually take?

Look, I just blew it. Just kick me out. It’s cool. 

I’m sick of waiting; where’s the “man” when you want him?

Changing of the guard, eh? 

They’ve had me in here for over an hour.

I’m so sorry. Can’t I just pay for it and never come into the store again? 

Sorry about the tears, man. My kid is so hungry and what if I lose my place? 

We’d be on the street!

But you can do something, can’t you? I won’t ever come in here again, I swear!

Thank you so much, man! I won’t ever do anything this stupid again. Really!

***

coming in UMM Binnacle Ultrashorts 2017 

(This Flash is expanded into a 10-minute, one act play: let me know by comments if you would like to see it up.)

High Water

Willy was born delighted in the middle of a rainstorm that threatened to flood the root cellar where they were hiding from the lightning. She had wide-open blue eyes. Her tiny expressive face soundlessly oohed and aahed and grimaced and startled with each feeling from the very beginning and, soon, she had a coo of contentment that nurtured her mother and then a three-tone song of a laugh that always made her siblings smile. Thunderstorms and floods threatened them so often but Willy’s birth let Mama engage with them easier from then on.

By age two, she had become the sixth oldest for the second time when her mama got sick in child birth and by four she was fifth oldest again when she stopped seeing Ezreel, who used to feed the pigs. She knew every inch of the farmyard and garden, had her own names for every chicken, pig, cow and horse on the place and could boil water on the stove, if mama was there.

A Little Help?

Hey, is anyone out there a chiropractor?

I think I’m going to need you to come over.  My shoulder is so bad I can’t even tuck in my shirt, anymore.  Well, I can, but it hurts like bulldozers and that scares me.  Don’t ask me to reach the Wheaties.  In fact, if I don’t get better soon, we’ll have to move everything down a notch:  the coffee cups, the Frosted Flakes, the juice glasses; you know.

And we don’t drive.

I started needing a doctor when the roof leaked.  Mid-morning, Wednesday, my mom was cleaning up the water from the leak in the kitchen, where what looks like a tiny orange freckle in the ceiling feeds the Great Lake, she calls it, right in front of the fridge.

She bent down to wipe it, when her feet started going out and she sat down hard, just missing one of the cats. 

Life Off the Cliff

Lessons that we all have learned from Pete:

Be blunt: rip the Band-Aid off the truth.

Share: it makes your ownership complete.

And laugh: some days refined, some days uncouth.

Bad news? Scream ugly once, then turn the page,

You are the writer at this theater, not the show.

No bragging rights unless you scar with age;

Drive off the cliff, if what you want’s below.

During the blink of light, the gasp of breath, that’s life,

Some brothers lock their doors, seat belts secured.

Back from the edge, to stay unhurt, to just survive,

They never climb the railing, jump the curb.