HELLO!! Welcome to another edition of Friday Fiction. Please drop in on our gracious hostess this week, Sharlyn, and say hi. She's Dancin on Rainbows, and would love to add you to her dance card. You can read some awesome short fiction, and even add a link to your own bloggy story if you want to!
Today I'm sharing with you a product of Jan's Master's Class on the Faithwiters.com message boards. Produced after her lesson on Tenses, this article was solely an exercise for me in writing first person/present tense. When I finished writing Beth's "monologue", I decided it needed to be something, but what? I decided on an email message, but commentors suggested a voice mail message would be better. I think I agree, although it would be a LONG voice mail.
At any rate, here (unedited) is my "throw-away" practice exercise that was honored with an Editor's Choice award last week!
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I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING
From: beth1995@freemail.moc
Date: April 14, 2009
To: ed.wilson@freemail.moc
Subject: Us
I finally figured it out, Ed.
You and me, we’re like coffee and ice cream. Yep, that’s exactly what we are -- coffee and ice cream.
It hit me today at the café. See, this stranger lady comes in, all poshy poshy poo poo with her hair done up and wearing this fancy schmancy outfit, and she orders coffee and ice cream. I’ve never had anyone to order that particular combination before, but I smile even though I think she’s coo-coo for coconuts and I go off to get her order. I’m wondering about it though. (You know me, always wondering about stuff.) I guessed that maybe when the coffee burns your tongue, the ice cream freezes the burn, and then the hot coffee thaws out your frozen mouth, and then…well, you get the picture.
That kinda reminded me of us, Ed. I’m like the coffee and you’re like the ice cream. (Wait - hear me out!) See, I get all het up and on fire about something, but it’s just too hot for you to handle and it starts burning you up. So you dowse the flame with your cold, clinical logic. (You’re sweet, Ed, but you tend to be as cold as … well … as ice cream.) Then my spirit ends up all frozen and numb with discouragement.
All this is going on in my head as I pour a cuppa for the poshy poshy poo poo lady and set her ice cream in front of her, and as I top off the other java drinkers, and as I snag the empty plates from the table of four. With each bundle of silverware I wrap, I count off another example of a burning bright idea that you’ve iced down.
I look over to check on Ms. Poshy Poo, and I watch how she savors the oppositeness of the two treats. She doesn’t let the coffee burn her mouth, or wait for the ice cream to freeze her tongue; she puts a spoon of ice cream in her mouth and then right away takes a sip of coffee. Then she smiles a blissful smile.
By now it’s time for my break, so I decide I just have to try this coffee and ice cream combination. (It was the blissful smile that convinced me.) I follow Ms. Poshy Poo’s lead, sampling a bite and a sip, and inside my mouth an amazing thing happens. The coffee melts the ice cream while the ice cream cools the coffee, and the two become one blissfully warm, ushy gooshy, sweet and pungent concoction.
Of course you know all this time I’m still thinking about us, Ed, about me being coffee and you being ice cream. But now I’m seeing a different take on the combination.
Ed, I’m so sorry that I only ever saw why we weren’t working out, and never even thought to look for how we could. I'm hoping you'll forgive me. After today, I’m thinking we might make this marriage work after all.
Can we try again?
I’d like to come home and melt you, Ed -- but just a little.
B
(c) Catrina Bradley 4/15/09
All Glory, praise, and honor go to Him Who is Worthy.
Cathy
"God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes."
Psalm 18:24 (Msg)
