The exercise:
Write about something or someone that is: generous.
After his aunt and uncle headed for home this morning, we took Max to the beach. Well, we tried anyway. I think we were there for less than ten minutes before he wanted to go to the splash park instead. It was quite a bit of fun either way.
On the way home we stopped at the Greek restaurant in town for lunch before napping most of the afternoon away. After dinner I harvested pickling cukes (because they needed to be picked, we don't actually have any orders for them this week... which means more pickles for us!) and potatoes (for tomorrow's boxes).
The remainder of the box harvest awaits us in the morning.
Mine:
"He lives in a house on the east side of town."
"That's generous of you."
"... I'm sorry, what? How is that generous? He paid for it himself."
"No, that's not what I meant. I was talking about your description of that building as a house."
"It's got four walls and a roof, doesn't it?"
"There are a whole lot of holes in those walls."
"Those are windows."
"Now you're being very generous."
2 comments:
I guess you've beached Max out over the past few days then! And if you're napping in the afternoon again, I guess he's worn you out in return :-D
Heh, I like the banter you've got in today's story, the back-and-forth is lively and entertaining. And I can quite picture the "house" as well....
Generous
"You leave my son out of this!" Deborah's triple chin quivered but it was hard to tell exactly what the emotion was. She left the pizza sitting on the counter and walked, with obvious difficulty, towards the back door.
"Your son's being very generous, don't you think? Paying your rent like that when he's not even got a job." The man's voice was steady, uninflected, but Deborah still didn't like it. She swiped at the switched on the wall by the back door, turning on the porch lights and the motion-sensitive floodlight. The man in the doorway remained stood in shadow, though harsh white light came in through the uncurtained windows around the kitchen and living room.
"Bulbs are such fragile things," said the man in the doorway. "But I unscrewed them and laid them on the earth in the plantpots, so I don't think they're damaged. Now, about your son."
"He's a good boy and he looks after his mother!" Deborah lumbered over to the counter again and stared at the pizza. She opened the cutlery drawer and took a pair of scissors out to cut the plastic wrap off. "He's got the money from a job, just not the kind of job that you tell the Department of Employment about."
"You know what job it was then?"
Deborah pulled a slim torch from the cutlery drawer and pointed it at her visitor, depressing the switch. Before it could light there was an explosion and it was ripped out of her hand and punched its way through the window behind her. She looked up, shocked, and saw her visitor was putting something away. Probably a gun.
"Yes," she said breathily.
Greg - thanks!
Love the tension and mystery in this scene. I do not think I would like to have this man as a late night visitor...
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