When my friend opens her mouth, hatred and ugliness comes flying out. I look at my wife who mirrors my quizzical expression and we wonder how one person could hate everything so much? True, she’s not rich, but certainly not poor either. She isn’t an ugly woman. She has a loving husband, nice children and a few wonderful grandchildren.
Perhaps age is creeping into her mind and she’s feeling mortal.
Has she been angry for so long that it just seems normal or does she just enjoys being angry.
I have to wonder, does she care that she’s becoming intolerable?
Tag: short story
All Aboard…
It made no difference if it was a family vacation or headed to the grocery store, my mother would plan it out to the smallest detail, barking out instruction that would make any Drill Sergeant proud, while my dad checked the tires and looked under the hood. Seating arrangements created to resolve sibling conflict; snack strategically placed within her reach.
“Anyone need to go to the bathroom?”
“Everybody have their purses, money, comb?”
“Last chance because once we start moving, we aint stopping.”
After about fifteen minutes into the trip, “Shoot Arlie, I think I left the coffee pot on.”
What’s Taking so Long…
A long time ago, just after people found out the world isn’t flat; we got our news from something called a newspaper. ‘The Carrollton Daily Democrat’ or ‘morning coffee rag’ as we called it, was printed on large sheets of paper, thrown on the back of a truck and hauled off to some poor ‘smo’ who would ride his bike through the freezing rain at the butt crack of dawn to toss it up onto the roof or into the neighbor’s yard. But sadly, as time progressed, we found ourselves unable to wait a few hours for our news of ‘world destruction’, ‘what stupid shit did Trump say today or ‘what’s J-Lo up to these days’. So we turned to technology to deliver us from our boredom.
Now I get my news a thousand times a day in 140 character bursts. I’m still just as confused as I was back then and now I don’t have anything to put in Tweeties cage.
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The City Market…
The smell of popcorn, burned hot dogs and sweat invaded his nostrils as Jason pushed his way down Fuller Street, past vegetable carts, homemade pie stands and the booth with carved wooden bears holding ‘Welcome signs’. He weaved around baby strollers and people who thought it a good idea to bring their dogs for a walk through the shoulder to shoulder traffic. He entered through the back of the jewelry stand and sat down at the table.
“How’d we do?” Sheila asked.
“Pretty good shopping day” he told his girlfriend as he emptied the wallets and watches from his pockets.
The Great Back Stabbing…
Now this is the way I remember the story going. I could be wrong, I was only 5 at the time.
“Mother, might I have a piece of your deliciously fried chicken. You make the best there is in all the world,” I asked.
She looked at me with love in her eyes and said, “I’m sorry my precious son, the favorite of all my children, but you will have to wait until your father gets home. Then we shall all eat together. It would be a shame if your father was deprived of your company. It will be so wonderful to sit at talk with you. You are the best son any parent could ever ask for.”
“ Oh I do understand dear mother, I shall wait patiently like a dutiful son. Gee I sure love you. Is there anything that I might help you with?”
So there I, was sitting patiently and watching her frying her chicken and singing. I was thinking how great it was to have such a fantastic mother.
But suddenly my evil brother Phillip came slinking out from the shadows. He had an evil grin on his face, and a cloak half covering his head. Being the horrible brute that he was, he informed her that he was in a hurry and could do whatever he wanted because he was a big brother. He grabbed a piece of that chicken off the plate and went running out the back door. “Bwaa…Haa…Haa,” he laughed as he ran out.
Now with that turn of events, my mother quickly spun around and with that fork still in her hand, started shaking it in his direction. “Just for that young man, you will have to do without your sup…” That fork, slippery from chicken grease, went sailing out of her hand with the accuracy of a cruise missile and with divine providence stuck smack dab in the middle of his back.
You would have thought that she had stabbed him in the back with a machete the way she ran to him. I mean, she was all over him…hugging and kissing and praying.
“Oh my goodness mother,” I said. “I do hope that my dear precious brother is alright, but if you’ve killed him, may I have his piece of chicken?’
Jerry Brotherton 