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Some movement behind Paola: the maître d’ waved a napkin above his head. I glanced across the street, curious who could be watching for the signal. Earlier, I had noticed a police sergeant loitering by the newsstand, flipping the pages of a magazine. Now he stared at me from behind impenetrable sunglasses. When the maître d’ shouted a clipped “Eh!,” the sergeant darted through the traffic on the busy avenue.
When I turned back to remark on this astonishing development, Anyssa or Martina or Paola had vanished, and two waiters struggled to drag the strange herald away from my table.
Note: See But Wait! There’s More…. for an explanation of the 100 Words project. Read the previous installment or the next one.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
“I’m sorry you are so afraid, honey, but everything is going to be okay.” My mother kneaded the back of my neck with her right hand. The knuckles of the left one looked white compared to the tan vinyl that covered the steering wheel. We must have been sitting in Dad’s old Plymouth. It was my first day of kindergarten. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I should ask Dad about that old car. What was the model? How long did he drive it? I think he sold it for scrap when I was about eight.
—
I almost couldn’t believe it, but Dad said that …more
I didn’t recognize his face or the strange accent. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”
“If you will allow me only a m-moment, I have information that is vital to your s-s-safety, but we must not—”
“Who are you? Who sent you here?” Martina asked. Her face looked fearful—or was she angry? I’d never seen her so upset in our four months together. She pushed away from the table, turned her head toward the door of the restaurant, and waved two fingers at the maître d’.
“Puh-puh-please, señor, you must b-be very careful. They know all about your new experiment—”
Note: See But Wait! There’s More…. for an explanation of the 100 Words project. Read the previous installment or the next one.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
When I opened my eyes again, the spot of light had climbed up the opposite wall. I tried to calculate how long I’d been unconscious—three hours, perhaps? Then I remembered the dream: last Wednesday, lunch with Anyssa—the bistro on Avenida Mistral. We had just ordered a bottle of cheap Chardonnay when a short, balding man stepped out of the sidewalk crowd and approached our table. He clutched a black book against the lapel of his shiny gray suit.
“Señor Vicente, I’m very s-s-sorry to interrupt your meal,” he said. “But I must discuss a matter of g-great importance.”
Note: See But Wait! There’s More…. for an explanation of the 100 Words project. Read the previous installment or the next one.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
I awoke and found myself in an unfamiliar gray space, my aching body supine on a smooth concrete floor. Through a squarish opening somewhere above my head, a narrow beam of light illuminated dust motes in the air and allowed me to discern the extent of the room. The floor was about ten feet by ten feet. I pulled myself into a sitting position with my back against the outside wall. Good God! I realized that the room had no door. I searched the space above for some sense of the ceiling but saw only an endless column of darkness.
Note: See But Wait! There’s More…. for an explanation of the 100 Words project, or read the next installment.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
There is one thing that stays the same she said and I said What’s that? and she said We always end up talking about Peru and I asked her Do you want another coffee and she said No, I’m fine, but go ahead if you want and so I was gone for a minute and when I came back the conversation turned to other subjects like how hot it gets in Dallas in the summer and how the grass turns brown for what seems like six solid months and all you can think of is Will it ever rain again? and how we don’t know why we stay here but we guess we’ll stay put for a while and then she told me that she liked to think of herself as a poet and I said I can see that in you so why don’t you go back to writing poetry? and she said It hasn’t been the same since he left, but maybe I will.
Note: The prompt for this piece was the lead line, “There is one thing that stays the same…,” which is taken from the work of Abigail Thomas, and the inspiration was a real conversation to which I’ve added a few imaginary elements in order to protect the innocent.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
Gordon knows his wife could use his help inside the house. There are many things to do before the children arrive for Easter dinner. She likes to put out the good china, and there’s silver to polish, and linens to iron, napkins to fold, but he doesn’t consider any of that to be his responsibility. Early in the marriage, he would have been more accommodating on this point, but that was a long time ago.
Bernadette was up at 5:30. She made coffee and began puttering in the kitchen. Gordon lay in bed until 6:15, his usual time, then got out of bed, put in his dentures, took a four-minute shower in the coldest water he could stand, and went to the kitchen for a cup of black coffee. As he drank the hot liquid in impatient sips, he toyed with the garage door opener in his other hand.
“You don’t really have to …more
It’s the same dream, but it’s always different. I am back in the old house, the one where we lived before the war came and my father lost his job and we had to move north. I know, as I always know, that HE is here. He is here in the house with me. I can’t hear him, I never see him, I don’t want to see him, because I know what will happen if he finds me.
I wake up in my bed in the room we shared. I look around me in the darkness. I can see the three windows, filled with starlight and street lights. There is more light out there, on the shingles of the roof outside the windows, more light on the lawn that slopes away toward the valley. It is most dark inside the house, but this room isn’t the darkest.
Everything is there as we left it. The huge old radio …more
Mel was my best friend during the summer we spent at Lake Barron. When people asked what “Mel” was short for, she liked to say “Melvin.” Sometimes she’d wait for a reaction, but sometimes she’d just say it and walk away. There was nothing about her that made “Melody” seem like a good fit.
Mel and I were horsing around in shallow water in her father’s leaky rowboat the first time I saw the Payton boys race by in their aluminum canoe. I stood staring. Mel waved a greeting, but neither of the boys acknowledged us. They glided past us in a matter of moments. I watched until they disappeared from sight around the point where the campground ended.
“Who was that?” I asked Mel. Her family had spent summers on the lake for four years, …more
The others think I come here for the cake. They’re partly right. I have a mighty sweet tooth, and that’s what brought me in here once.
But I come back for the sparkle in the baker’s shy, dark eyes and the streak like powdered sugar in his glossy black hair.
On that first visit, he gave me a glance and then looked down at his apron. He reached under the glass counter and served me the first slice of cake from the end of the pan. That day, it was white cake with whipped-cream frosting and strawberries.
On my next trip, I wanted to impress him with my Spanish accent, so I asked for the tres leches. He flashed a smile and picked out a thick, sticky slab from the middle of the pan. I mumbled a gracias and took home my treat.
I wondered if something was wrong when I came in two days later and he chose that moment to disappear into the back of the bakery. But in a few seconds, he came back carrying a small white cardboard box tied up with string. Back in the car, I cut the twine and found a perfect slice of golden cake with chocolate buttercream icing, decorated with a single yellow frosting rose.
Some day, we will make beautiful dessert together.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
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