Casz's Fiction Farm

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If you’re here, you’re here because you are linking back from Chuck Wendig’s site and his Flash Fiction Challenge as of Feb. 6, 2015, The Four-Part Story (Part I). Okay, you might be here because you read my blog regularly. If so, thank you and keep checking back for the progress of this challenge, as it will not be complete for a few weeks. 

My “entry” for this challenge is a piece I started so long ago. I’m famous for starting stuff that pops in my head and then abandoning it. Rather, life makes me abandon it. This challenge was perfect for me to bring it out and dust it off again.  It was only two paragraphs when I first opened it up. The rest of the words were started today. Herr Wendig gave us 1,000 words for the first part. This is creeping in at 858. I wanted to give folks some wiggle room for the middle. I always need more words in the middle. At any rate, really curious to see where another writer is going to take this. 

By the way, whomever picks this up to go for part II, I can very much share this with you in google docs if you prefer. Super simple. Ahh, modern technology makes being a writer so much easier. Because, you know, it’s not hard at all. 

In all seriousness….Read Word Nerds:

I’ll Take Monday

Thursday was out to get me. Most people hate Mondays and call it their worst day of the week. However, mine was always Thursday. This Thursday was already a beast and it wasn’t even 6:45 a.m. My neighbor woke me with his bag pipe playing. When I yelled at him, he apologized and said the mused has attacked him and he couldn’t resist. I would mind being awoken by the sounds of two geese committing Hari-kiri much less, truly, if he could play something other than Brian Boru March and actually played it well. But badly was my neighbor’s playing style.

He continued to play even though I yelled at him. I tried to pretend it was a soundtrack for my shower. Not very sexy or invigorating.

Looking in the bathroom mirror, I found a pimple in the middle of my forehead. Strange desires to take my razor and shave off the zit hit me. I honestly couldn’t stop myself. Blood ran everywhere. The hand towel looks like it was tie-dyed in blood. Not attractive in the least. Eventually I got it to stop bleeding and put one of those stupid-looking circle bandages over where a simple blemish had been. At that point I was late to catch the bus to work. I needed coffee and shoes. I dashed to grab a travel tumbler of coffee and felt my stocking feet ooze into something wet and sticky. I looked down. Cat puke.  I love Mr. Waffle, but he truly is a cocksucker sometimes.

Ten minutes later, I was finally out the door. At the bus stop, I was alone. The next bus didn’t arrive for another fifteen minutes or so. However, I felt like I was safer leaving the house than staying. I was deep into a puzzle app on my phone when I smelled something foul. I looked up and a few feet away stood a woman. She was just barely a senior citizen, I reckoned. She didn’t look at me, but only at the zit on my forehead, or rather the bandage that covered it up. I hoped she wouldn’t’ ask me about it. The fact that she hadn’t showered in quite some time was assaulting my nose. I tried to covertly stick my nose deep into my shirt. This, I remember, is why Europeans where scarves all the time. I put my phone away and tried to make a mental note of everything I had to get done at work that day.  Ugh. I still hadn’t gotten in my weekly report to my supervisor and she was going to be all over my ass as soon as I walked in the door.

The bus arrived and I took to my normal seat, although because I’d  missed the earlier bus, this bus was less crowded. The seating options were plentiful. But, I’m a creature of habit – about a third of the way back in the bus on the right-hand side, against the window. The stinky lady took her sweet time getting on the bus and then scanned around. She took a moment longer to look at the seat next to me. Shit. I put my bag on the aisle seat that was vacant. It didn’t work. Stinky lady sat down right next to me. She’d nearly sat on my bag, but I ninja’d it back into my lap before her noxious gas was on my bag, too. There were more than a dozen other seats she could have sat in. I would have gotten off at the next stop if I wasn’t already late for work, so I had to ride all the way into downtown, nearly gagging all the way there.

In the elevator at work people looked at me funny, and when the mailroom guy, Toby, got on at one of the stops towards my floor, he flat out told me, “Killian, You stink!” I stammered about a hobo lady sitting next to me on the bus, but nobody listened.

This is why so many people keep a spare set of clothes at the office.

At my desk I sprayed air freshener hoping it would eat the stink fumes I’d inherited on the bus. I made the guy in the cubicle next to me cough.

“Sorry,” I meekly offered.

The message light on my phone was blinking. It made me feel annoyed. First message was from my boss:  weekly reports. I deleted it. Second message was from my friend, Frannie. “Killian, you have to call me right now, it’s an emergency!” Her last emergency was trying to decide between a Main Coon or a Scottish Fold cat.

Frannie’s likely non-emergency or my boss?

I let my computer warm up and just sat there a moment. Just being. Doing nothing.

When I could justify no more “downtime,” regardless of Bag Pipe Alarm Clock, I opened my email.

My mother had sent me an email and the subject line read YOU NEED TO CALL ME RIGHT AWAY. My mother still did not understand that all caps meant you were yelling.

Boss, Frannie, or Mom?

Then I opened up the spreadsheet to populate the report.

I was just about to export the data and the phone rang.

(Here’s the rest of the tale:  http://tonij.net/2015/03/ill-take-monday-parts-1-4/ written by electrcrngr and ToniJ).