Flash Fiction Friday: Stuck Amuck
I made up this week's rule, which shouldn't be too hard to guess. Be sure to read the fictions of Caiti, Gabe, & Crow, too! So far, only Caiti's posted, but I've got faith in the boys. To be honest, I chose a topic for mine that was a little bit too easy to attack, it was kind of a case of low-hanging fruit in a way, so it's admittedly sub-par, but it was cathartic for me nonetheless. Read on...
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I tripped over my own feet and found myself sprawled on the pavement before a pair of leather brogues, possibly Italian made. I looked up and gasped in wonder at the sparkling Adonis above me.
“Edward!” I exclaimed, scrambling to my feet. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled wryly as though I amused him. “We were supposed to meet for lunch,” he said. “Remember? Even though I don’t eat human food? Because I’m a vampire?”
“Right,” I said, brushing myself off. I looked deeply into his topaz eyes. There was no other word to describe their color. I know because I have described them as limpid pools of topaz every time the question of his eye color arose. Edward once asked me if I knew what a thesaurus was, but I was too distracted by his beautiful hair, which is bronze. Again, no other word to describe his hair color. Just bronze. Perhaps I have an affinity for words with Z in them.
“Hang on a second,” he said suddenly, looking up. “Did you just narrate the word ‘affinity’?”
“Uh...” I pretended to think but I was staring at his lovely ivory skin.
He frowned and muttered something to himself, and then a slow grin spread across his face. “Bella!” he cried. “I think she’s gone!”
“Who’s gone?” I murmured, trying to focus on his gorgeous face.
“Stephenie! Quick, say something smart.”
“Mitosis.”
“No, no, I mean something you learned after you passed ninth grade. Like, uhh, pleonasm!” He bit his bottom lip and paused as though waiting to be struck by lightning. Nothing happened.
“Holy crap, you’re right!” I smiled in relief. “Maybe she just went to the bathroom?”
“One can only hope,” he said gravely, then sat down on the sidewalk with a grunt. “Maybe her own writing made her sick. So what do you think is going to happen next?”
I sat beside him, glad to be able to look elsewhere besides his weirdly pallid face. “In the story? Oh, I don’t know,” I sighed. “Let’s see. After women have fought for decades for equal rights in the home and workplace, I arrive with great pomp on the literary scene only to be saved from my own stupidity time and again by an obsessive creep. I don’t know, Edward, what do you think?”
He nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, you’re destined to become an insular homemaker.” We sat in silence while he shredded grass. “Well, frankly,” he spoke up again, “I just hope we don’t have any more lurid vampire sex scenes. I’ve had enough erotic descriptions of bruised — ouch!”
The eraser end of a giant pencil loomed in the air and prodded him until he was standing upright again. I dutifully assumed the sprawled-out position I’d occupied before. Edward and I exchanged pained looks, and then I forced myself to think, My, but his topaz eyes and bronze hair are so dashing today.
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