Friday August 23rd, 2013

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose about: the pizza shop.

Woke up this morning to rain, which thankfully stopped fairly quickly. But my first thought was along the lines of 'Great, it's going to be a wet and muddy pick'. My second thought?

Oh crap, my iPhone is going to get ruined.

Normally I just shove my cell in my pocket while I'm working in the garden, so by the end of my three years with the previous phone it was pretty crusty with dirt. I was feeling less than excited about doing that to my new gadget.

I managed to get through the harvest (and it was a good one!) without damaging it, but I can see that I'm going to need to take a few more precautions with this one than I have with previous models.

Mine:

The cook stood in the alley behind the shop, an unlit cigarette dangling precariously from thick lips. He clutched a lighter in his fist as he contemplated the collection of discarded items littering the ground around him.

He didn't really want to have a smoke, he'd been trying to quit for so long.

But, he thought to himself as the flame flickered into existence, it was the easiest way to get the overpowering smell of pizza out of his clothes.

3 comments:

Greg said...

Heh, Charlie Stross refers to the iPhone as the "Jesus Phone" in his Laundry series (Jennifer Morgue, Atrocity Archive, etc.) and it sounds like it's glamour might be getting to you too :) I'd just get a case for it, they're pretty cheap and will protect it from rain. Then again, I annoy people all the time by barely caring about my phone, dropping it and everything, and never breaking the glass or doing more than dinging a corner.

Poor chef, he sounds like he's ready for a new job! I love how breaking his giving-up streak is better than the smell of pizza.

The pizza shop
There were eight teens at the front of the shop, sat on the chairs, playing some kind of poker with silent intent. Maude walked past them, wondering if they were the drivers, or just waiting for food.
"I'd like a medium pepperoni, a large Coke, Haägen-Dazs, the chocolate one, a side of kickers, and some jalapeño poppers, please," she said at the counter.
The girl there just pointed to the sign on the counter, which said in very large letter, "FORD'S PIZZA: YOU GET WHAT WE GIVE YOU"

David said...

Wait, it's too hot.
Shhh...I'll just blow on it.
Arrrrgh.
Told you

Marc said...

Greg - yeah, I wasn't really prepared for the 'do you want a case with it?' question when I got mine. And since my tendency is to say no to any and all add-on offers when purchasing pretty much everything, my response came out before I even thought about it.

I'll have to look in to them, just to see how much they cost and how useful it would actually be.

I wouldn't mind working at that pizza shop. Not sure I'd go there as a customer though :P

David - hah, yes. I do believe I've been there before. I'll decline to say which side of the conversation I was on though...