love

The rising cost of love

Two years ago, he’d given her a St. Bernard with a cask of peppermint schnapps clipped to its collar.

She’d given him a white pickup the size of house. Last year, he’d bought vehicles for both of them. She grabbed the giant black truck, leaving him the little red SUV.

This Christmas, he wouldn’t be out-done or out-foxed. He sold one of his core enterprises, enduring weeks of bad press and death threats from displaced workers. He bought an estate in the Swiss Alps that included a mansion, several ski-chalets and a town.

She’d get it all. He didn’t ski.

I wrote this drabble for the Story-a-Day Challenge (storyaday.org). The prompt by Brenda R. called for creating a fan fiction of “your favorite or least favorite TV commercial.”

The Reset Button

By Jim Anderson

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #348 at Velvet Verbosity.

Gwen wanted to reset the relationship.

“Is there a button we push?” I asked.

We were in Nick’s, in a back booth, pound-jars of PBR on the table between us. Gwen studied her beer as hard as I’d ever seen her study anything. “It’s not working,” she said.

“I think it is.”

“Just stop it, okay? Stop pretending.”

“Pretending?”

“That you love me. I’m not dumb.”

“I never—”

“Loved me?”

“Thought you were dumb.”

“Lair!”

I started to object, but saw there was no point.

Instead, I pressed my thumb on the table-top.

Gwen smiled.

“Push hard. Sometimes it sticks.”

Love and the Summer Night

By Jim Anderson

He was a peasant, a man of the soil. Or so he claimed.

She never believed him. He owned a farm house, but someone else owned the barn and fields. His hands were huge and strong, but sensitive. A potter’s hands.

“You’re an artist,” she said. “Admit it.”

They were in bed, katydids singing through the window screens.

“Don’t call me that, girl.”

“I could call you worse.”

“Yes. An old artist.”

“No! I wouldn’t!”

His hands were on her, transforming her indignation, and they kissed.

Out beyond the barn and the fields that were not theirs, heat lightening flickered.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #345 at Velvet Verbosity.

How Nan Got Her Maple Trimmed

By Jim Anderson

Nan wanted a bough or two cut off the big silver maple in our backyard. So I hired a crew. Then she was hot to put in her garden and didn’t like having to wait.

“It’s too early to plant, anyway,” I said. [Read more…] about How Nan Got Her Maple Trimmed

Forever Hold Your Peace

By Jim Anderson

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #342 at Velvet Verbosity.

Tony shuddered when the tinkling started. He sat in a sparsely populated corner of the hall, far from the head table, closer to the keg, drinking beer out of a plastic cup. As the tinkling grew in volume, Tony kept his eyes on the wet rings his cup had made in the paper tablecloth. A cheer arose. He knew she was kissing him, and the thought ate him alive. It’s your own damn fault, he told himself. You had your chance to speak. What is there to do now?

After a minute, he got up and headed for the door.

Details

By Jim Anderson

The professor wore the required shirt and shoes. He expected service.

Yes, his pants were missing. So were his underpants, his socks and his wife of 38 years, if anyone cared for details.

The girl behind the counter gaped at him, her mouth a perfect O. The professor set down a bottle. “It’s all in your imagination,” he told her. True enough. What could she see beyond the counter-top? A man in bifocals and a wrinkled shirt. “Let’s get on with it.” He pulled a bill from his shirt pocket, and unfurled it beside the register.

She rang him up.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #336 at Velvet Verbosity.