A Flash Fiction Friday piece...

There's a wonderful site: http://www.flashfictionfriday.com/about/ that posts writing prompts. These are the folks who turned out The Lost Children Anthology that I was privileged to be part of. You will see a link for where to purchase that to the right of the blog. 


Anyway, they posted a prompt this week that spoke to me. I've had a couple of days where I've been so busy running errands and shopping, I've had no time to write. Tonight on Facebook I saw that a new prompt had been posted and decided I wanted to do something for that. The prompt is here: http://www.flashfictionfriday.com/2011/12/16/f3-cycle-60-tom-waits-for-no-man/ and my story is below.


~Nancy

I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You

It was Friday, before Christmas. I walked in from the rain, shaking it off my coat before I tossed it over one of the hooks by the door. The Last Stop was the name of the place, a little watering hole-in-the-wall before a long stretch of dry towns. Incongruously plunked down in a middle American bedroom community called Exeter, it stood out like a purple mashed thumb on a hard working hand.

I was coming from a book signing in some former mill city trying to reinvent itself, driving a rent-a-buggy on the road to nowhere, when I stumbled across it. It didn’t appear too promising, with nothing but a YES, WE’RE OPEN sign and garish blinking Christmas lights around smudged windows. There were a few cars in the lot. I was hungry and thirsty, and they had cheap bar food.

I don’t turn heads. Writers don’t have to be glamorous, we spend most our time behind a keyboard anyway. Only the books have to shine. I travel alone a lot, so I don’t want to attract attention. When I’m on the road, just jeans and a tee shirt mostly. Granny boots with block heels give me an edge on height. I keep my hair up in a pony tail, out of my face, and I wear big glasses because it makes me look like a librarian or Sunday School teacher. I know what I am—a burnt out, near-sighted, self-published hack with somewhat of a following.

I shoved my way through the loungers on the battered padded stools. “What can I get you Miss?” the guy behind the bar said as my soles crunched on peanuts. Bunch of older dudes around me, balding and midlife crises hanging over their belts. If the one on the left patted my fanny again, I was going to smack him.

“A cold Becks and a plate of hot wings,” I said, tossed down some cash, and went to find myself a seat at one of the tables. Green bottle, red sauce. The comforts and joys of the season.

A perky blonde in red leggings and a candy cane striped sweater brought my stuff over. She smiled and said she hoped I enjoyed it. I just nodded. I don’t like talking to people when I’m not behind a book and pen.

Three more stops and I could go home. Three more friggin' stops…

Two independent book stores and a mall with a big media outlet. That’s what they call them now, the chains. They sell all kinds of stuff in there, and most of them have a café. Glitzy and chic, well dressed people carrying tablets and six dollar coffees. And me, the humble mystery writer, sneaking in the back way so as not to be noticed before I had to walk out there, read an excerpt, answer some questions, and look like I enjoy this. It gets tiresome. Smiling and scrawling platitudes to people I will never know. Gotta hawk my wares if I want the sales though.

I relish the quiet anonymity afterward.

Just my luck, amateur night. A couple of middle age ladies did a duet on The Sound Of Silence. Simon and Garfunkel they weren’t, but being able to sign along with the song made it interesting. While several more tuneless renditions of country oldies droned on, I pulled out my pad and pen and jotted notes for a story based on a singer who was murdered backstage and the only witness was a deaf mute fan who disappears mysteriously.

I was considering titling it ‘Killing Me Softly’, when some guy with a guitar and a battered fedora strode up. Must have been a local, and well known, because there were cat calls and whistles, though everyone was gathering around.

He plopped onto a stool and strummed; then opened a vein. With a voice like a gravel pit, he sang about small town life and the harsh unforgiving city lights. Girls that done him wrong, things that didn’t belong, and being alone at the end of the day with nothing but a bottle and cigarette for company. I let my food get cold but I had another beer, and gave him my full attention, because as harsh as this guy’s growl was at times, it was the most honest damn bunch of songs I had heard in ages. And he had bottomless blue eyes I wanted to get lost in.

“Who is that?” I asked the guy across from me. He glanced over like I was some alien species. Which I guess I was.

“That’s Old Tom. Nobody knows who he is; he just comes on in and puts on a show one Friday a month.”

“Guess I was lucky to be here for it,” I said, not realizing the song had stopped and my voice was a bit too loud.

“No, you was drawn to me by cruel fate,” Old Tom said, taking a drag from his cigarette and crushing it out on the floor. “I got a song about that too.” He got to his feet, and setting the guitar down, shuffled over to an old piano, launching into something about being too shy to talk to a girl in a bar.

I fell in love with him that moment. We were kindred souls. Except he was too busy being a singer, and my mind was wrapped up in creating stories about who he was, where he was from, and what kind of experiences compel a man to walk into a bar with a guitar and a hatful of songs one Friday a month.

You know how time gets away when you’re busy. Old Tom sang his set, tipped his hat, winked at me, then strode out into the night. I tried to follow, but the fog swallowed him and I was alone once more.

Never saw him again. But I got a damn good book out of it. So maybe that was fate's Christmas gift to me.