Thursday February 23rd, 2017

The exercise:

Write about something or someone that is: unwelcome.

Sold the last loaf of bread shortly after noon today. Stayed open until 2:30 and managed to sell everything else but the last baguette and a handful of macaroons. Took the baguette home, left the cookies to sell tomorrow.

Things are very hard to predict this time of year. I have no idea why we had so many more customers today compared to yesterday. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Weather was nice enough for Kat to take the boys to the park this afternoon. Still cold enough that they couldn't stay all that long, but it's progress in the right direction (spring, in other words).

Mine:

"That's not how I would do it."

"You should really be doing it like this."

"Why don't you do it this way? This way would be so much better."

"I'd like it if you did it this way instead."

I get it. I hear you.

I hear what you're really saying.

Make this more convenient for me.

Well guess what?

It's all unwelcome.

Your thoughts.

Your opinion.

You.

So just go ahead and take you and your business elsewhere.

It won't be missed.

And neither will you.

2 comments:

Greg said...

I think I'd have taken the baguette home too, rather than have a solitary one in the freezer overnight. Good choice!
I am intrigued as to what inspired this post, especially since it feels like a genuine train of thought and conversation. And one I've had myself on more than one occasion. I also tried reading it as though it was just one person talking to themselves and that's got quite a good result too -- great work!

Unwelcome
All the overhead lights in the hall were turned off so that the wall-mounted lights, in art-deco sconces, could provide a softer, less direct lighting. Two columns of tables, each with two chairs positioned opposite one another, ran the length of the hall, and almost all of the table were occupied by pairs of chess-players. The noises were the soft sighs of the losers, the taut exhalations of those who thought they'd spotted a win, and the gentle tap and click of chess pieces conducting their eternal warfare. A moderator stood at either end of the hall, eyes scanning up and down, alert for a motion, a wave of a hand that would indicate that adjudication was required: a clarification of the rules or an agreement that a win was inevitable for one side of the other. In these cases they would walk gracefully, stately to the table-side and deliver a considered verdict in a soft but clear voice, knowing that jubilation would light in one pair of eyes and darkness would swallow those of their opponents.
Except at table 32 where Percy only had one eye after the incident in 2012 that they didn't talk about.
Both moderators were addressing tricky questions of supremacy, one where it was debated if the en passant rule would affect the outcome depending on exactly when the pawn progressed, and the other where it was castling queenside that was causing the heartache, when the door opened and a short man in a shabby suit came in. Heads raised, briefly looked over, and then subsided again as the important matters were returned to. The short man sat down at a rare empty table and set down a board.
Two minutes later both moderators were at his table.
"This is unwelcome," said moderator One. He gestured to the Snakes and Ladders board laid out on the table.
"Put it away," added moderator Two.
The short man set two queens and a pawn on the start square.
"Chess pieces," he said belligerently.
"Not a chess board," said moderator One. The was quiet menace in his tone.
"Not appropriate," said moderator Two. He was openly hostile.
"Anyone can play me," said the short man. He picked up the die, ready to roll.
Later on the police would interview everyone in the room and they would all swear blind that the short man had shaken his fist at the moderators and they'd both taken a step backwards, whereupon the short man had stuffed the die, the chess pieces, and the board down his own throat and sat there choking to death while they all stared, horrified.

Marc said...

Greg - in short: inspired by people who Wcome into a bakery, that is well known to be very busy, late in the day and being generally unpleasant about there being no bread left for them to purchase.

In length: blergh, I don't want to get into it.

Well then, things certainly took a turn for the darker with the arrival of the short man! All the details are great, as usual, and I think I rather like your two moderators :)