There is a reason why you shouldn’t try to send email while walking down a flight of stairs. It is the same reason why your mother told you not to run with the scissors in your hand or a lollipop in your mouth.
But sometimes safety and circumstances coincide as the oddest of bedfellows and you don’t do as your mother taught you. Sometimes you find yourself wandering through a house wondering if the owner paid a designer for the monstrosities you are looking at or if it is their own bad taste.
You can’t help but wonder if the real reason that dead Italian masters are dead is because their concept of cool was so awful they were hung by an angry mob or if they were graced with the kiss of death as a result of old age.
Had it not been so awful you would have been watching your step. Instead your smartphone made you fumble and you walked right into her. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that you almost knocked her down a flight of stairs. You can’t forget how wide her eyes got when she almost fell or how thankful you were that she didn’t.
The people down below told her that you threw your phone so that you could catch her. They said that you wrapped her up in your right arm and that it almost looked like something you would see in a ballet.
That made you laugh. You aren’t suave, debonair or graceful. Later on she told you that the first thing she noticed was that your arms were really solid, but you never would have guessed she had noticed. Not after that look or the way she yelled at you for being careless.
When you let her go she walked the stairs past you and never looked back. You know because you stared at her the entire time. At first it was because you felt foolish and tongue tied. A mumbled apology was ignored, but her legs weren’t…at least not by you.
You remembered thinking that you would have to be blind, dead or gay not to imagine what it would be like to have them wrapped around you. She walked away while your mind raced for the kind of snappy line that would get her attention.
You needed something that wouldn’t make you seem like a stalker, sound like a fool or make her feel threatened in any way.
Later on you sat on the bench outside and wondered if this was real life or a dream. It was all too easy to picture a flash mob materializing out of the thin air and dancing around that bench you were sitting on. Upon second thought you had this image of being the bad guy in a Aretha Franklin video. It was all too easy to see her and her backup singers pointing their fingers at you.
Reality sets in and you remember that you aren’t a hero nor are you a villain. You are just a regular guy and maybe that is enough. Maybe you are overthinking it all, spending too much time trying to be someone else when what you really need to do is just be you.
So you wander back over to the house that wants to be a museum and rejoin the fundraiser. She is standing in the hallway talking to another woman but when you make eye contact she doesn’t look away.
“My name is Jack and I am really sorry about what happened. I would really like to buy you a cup of coffee and I promise not to spill it on you or trip you.”
This story was based upon the following prompt: What did the images mean to you?
Past submissions are listed below
- Wind and Waves
- Donuts
- A Detour
- 1974
- The Day Joy Left My Life
- Preserve Your Memories
- August
- The Flying Clown
- The Kitchen
- One Slightly Used Pump For Sale
- The Song of My Heart Has Gone Silent
- Grandpa
- Five Minutes
- Endless Blue Skies
- And then the world shifted
- I Hear Music
- A Fire In The Sky
- The Telephone Call
- She Wore A Red Dress
- Song Sung Blue…And Other Colors
- When Simply Awful became Simply Wonderful
- A Mugger
- A Jealous Man
- She Was Wrong
- It Was Just Coffee
- The Mistress of Tongue
- Dancing Didn’t Make Him Charming
- An Unfulfilled Promise
- A Whiter Shade of Pale
- Soft and Smooth
- Harder Kimio
- I Am On Fire
- Time Stand Still
- Love Burns
- Wanted
I really like this. All the thoughts relived and rethought. And the ending was perfect.
@2old2tap Thank you. I keep repeating myself, but I was really uncertain about the ending. I am glad that you enjoyed it.
You roped me in with this one, Jack. Love the the language you used throughout, especially incorporating the dead Italian masters … and the graceful transitions. Perfect ending. I agree with Bruce, You are a romantic.
@Craig McBreen Hi Craig. Thanks. I guess that this is what blogging is for me, a place to write fiction and share thoughts/ideas. I suppose it is fair to call me a romantic…maybe. 😉
@TheJackB I bet your poetry is a hell of a lot better than mine 🙂
@Craig McBreen I don’t know about that.
I like how this was structured, with him thinking back and kind of talking to himself.
@carrie.rogozinski Thanks. I am glad that he didn’t come off as some kind of crazy fool.
That’s fantastic – I adore the ending.
@bestoffates Thanks. I struggled a little bit with it. I didn’t want it to see too formulaic.
@bestoffates Thanks. I struggled a little bit with it. I didn’t want it to see too formulaic.
.I liked your character’s take on the staircase, it is a monstrosity, Great narrative and imagery
@bankerchick56 Yeah, the characters voice is mine. That staircase really isn’t for me. But it provides lots of fodder for stories.
Sigh…I’m transported by your words and these images.
@KDillabough That is high praise as well. The goal is always to capture the reader and take them to somewhere else.
This might be my favorite thing you’ve done, and you managed to use a second person narrative voice without it seeming awkward or contrived, which I find challenging.
Love the way you worked both photos in, too.
@CDG I appreciate the compliments. I like your writing very much so it is even nicer to read your kind words.
I think that my favorite stories usually come with that voice. I sometimes worry that it comes across as being artificial.
Well done for incorporating both pictures. I love: people told her ‘you threw your smartphone so that you could catch her’. And those first two sentences pulled me right in.
@earlybird I had a few ideas for using them individually but it seemed like more fun to incorporate both of them. Thank you for visiting, hope you come back.
I had NO idea you were such a romantic, JB – LOVE the photos you graced this with!
@BruceSallan Well Bruce you should read more of my fiction. 😉 I can’t take responsibility for finding those photos. The writers of the prompt gathered those items together.
You have one hefty imagination!
@BetsyKCross My mother says that my preschool teachers told her that I was really good at telling stories. I just see things in my mind.