Got ten minutes? Write a story. Some years ago I was part of a lively little poet game group. We'd have haiku and limerick wars, take turns writing chapters of a story, "translate" poems written in languages we didn't know. One day the fab S. Elsemore started what he thought was going to be a beginning of a group story, only to have it hit the page all done. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
By the way-- the pic was a group doodle done through some nifty ap.
Microfiction by Stephen Elsemore
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A couple was having breakfast. The man was reading the travel section of the newspaper.
He said, "You know what's funny? Sometimes I have the feeling that if I just found a good place to sit and watch somewhere, and sat there long enough, then it wouldn't matter how remote or small the town or how side the street. Eventually there's just about nothing and nobody that wouldn't come passing by."
She said, "Yeah? Why don't you go try it."
It was a joke, but too quick. He said, "OK, I will." Then he went out to his car and started driving. He got on the highway and headed south. He drove four hours straight, then he started to feel a sadness pulling at him. He decided it was coming from all the weird little towns that were just a half-mile or so off the highway; the ones whose exit signs didn't say gas and didn't say food so there was
no reason for anybody to do anything but whoosh on by. But how could they help but feel all that whooshing, even if the highway wasn't close enough to hear it?
He took an exit and several minutes later he was in one of the towns. He parked in front of a broken meter and got out to walk. All the meters were broken. Between the bar and the diner he hesitated, then went into the diner. He sat down at a booth with a view of the street and started his waiting and watching. While he
waited he listened in on conversations at the other booths.
A lady said, "So what a lot of people don't understand is that past lives don't have to be in the past when it comes to years. Like, your last life might have been as a lawyer in the 2100's, and your next one might be as a poet in the Ming dynasty. Eventually, I think, we all of us get to each be Jesus once, which is the ultimate goal, then we're through with lives and we kind of get thrown back
into the mix and become part of everything."
Someone else said, "Hmmm." And ordered some cherry pie.
"Sure beats 15 minutes of being famous," thought the man who had been driving. He tried to remember the last time he'd had cherry pie.
At another booth a good-looking young man was talking to a pretty young woman, probably his wife. He said, "Sure I told a bunch of people about your buttfoot, but they were friends and I said it with love."
The waitress came over to the waiting and watching man. He ordered a cup of coffee. She said, "I don't know what it is about you. There's something. You have that look like you're the hero of some story." He said, "I'll take that coffee black." She walked off, shaking her head.
There seemed to be a simultaneous lull in all the conversations, so he got up and walked over to the jukebox. He put in a quarter and pressed B4, which was supposed to be a blues number. What he didn't know was that the chef, who was also the owner of the place, had a joke he liked to play which was to switch a few of the songs so that somebody who thought they were playing something cool and soulful would end up playing something ridiculous and hopefully end up real embarrassed, which could be funny to watch. He was a good cook, although still several lifetimes away from being Jesus. But he was god of his jukebox.
The man said, "Huh." He walked back to his booth while the voice from the jukebox went on about somebody leaving a cake out in the rain. A woman smiled at him as he passed and said, "I remember that song." He smiled back and sat down at his booth, where his coffee was waiting. After a few minutes he put two dollars on the table and left the diner and drove home to his wife.
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