The exercise:
Write about: the slice.
The rush only lasted 45 minutes at the bakery this morning, after which we still had a (yes, just one) cinnamon bun, half a dozen bagels, a dozen loaves of bread, and quite a few macaroons left. Of course all of that was sold (other than the last of the cookies) long before noon, but after yesterday's madness it felt almost... calm.
Spending tomorrow morning picking raspberries for Saturday's farmers market. Not sure how much is out there, but I'm mostly going there to sell peaches and apples, so I'm not too concerned.
Mine:
Every effort had been made in an attempt at equality. Tape measures had been brought forth, even scales had been put into use.
It was all, quite unsurprisingly, for naught.
"Carl's piece of birthday cake is bigger than mine!"
"No way! Peter's piece is even more huger than mine is!"
Truly, there was only one thing to be done.
"Dad!"
"Dad, no!"
"You can't eat them both!"
Clearly, I could do exactly that.
2 comments:
Were you not tempted to eat that solitary cinnamon bun yourself? In front of the customers queueing for it? :)
I see from your story that you're getting ready for having two kids who can talk and complain; tape measures and scales certainly won't be enough! I think your approach is rather good actually: at the end of it there's one happy person and two unhappy, instead of the three unhappy you were starting with. Bravo!
The slice
Screams from the kitchen drew Symphonia downstairs at a dangerous pace. She burst through the doorway, her tuning fork held above her head like a cudgel, and hit a high C with vibrato at full volume. In the confined space the combatants stopped what they were doing, slapped their hands over their ears, and backed away into the corners. When she was satisfied that the fighting had stopped, Symphonia stopped as well, and took a deep breath, her chest heaving like a pair of bellows.
"What... was... that.... About?" she gasped.
Madeleine took her hands off her ears and pointed at Cinderella. "She was trying to slice my toes off! My toes!"
Cinderella was still holding the carving knife they used for goose and venison, and Symphonia wished for a brief, guilty moment that she'd stabbed herself in the head with it. Madeleine's shoes were, for some reason, on the stove.
"Why?" asked Symphonia. She ignored Madeleine's grimace: they were Cinderella's stepsisters and they owed it to her to listen to her thought, no matter how mad the poor child was.
"The prince is coming!" Symphonia and Madeleine exchanged glances. Ever since the ball, where Cinderella had left a shoe behind after a liaison with a masked man she swore was Prince Charming, she'd had some very odd ideas in her head. "He's coming with the shoe I left behind, and he will marry whoever fits it."
"Right," said Symphonia gently. "Right. But, you're a size 6, right, Ella? Narrow-fit? And we're about five miles ride from the palace. So he's got, I don't know, probably sixty girls who fit that shoe within a five minute walk of his front door."
"Drawbridge," said Madeleine. She took her shoes off the stove and put them on. "And I'm a size 9."
"So I have to slice your toes off!"
"Ella," said Symphonia again. "We're too far away. He's probably already shacked up with a barmaid."
"I would be," muttered Madeleine under her breath. Symphonia shot her a look, but they both ended up grinning. "Anyway, you want to marry him, not me. Why slice me up, bitch?"
"So he carries you off, realises you're not me, and then kills you and comes back here again."
Symphonia and Madeleine shared a different look this time, one of horror. "And then?" asked Symphonia. Her tone was becoming the one you use with the mad aunt who boils her pets.
"Then you cut your heels off to fit into the shoe–"
"I'm a size 5, the shoes are already too big."
"–and he carries you off, kills you because you're not me, and comes back for me."
Symphonia and Madeleine edged out of the kitchen. In the living room, there was a quick discussion.
"Miss Hood?"
"Yes. She needs help."
"Are we sure? She seems to want to marry a murdering psychopath, this could work in our favour."
"...tempting. Very tempting."
Greg - tempted? Yes. Ready for the diabetic coma that would follow? Not quite :P
Hah! Thanks :)
Ah, good(?) to have another visit from your Cinderella. She's quite delightfully mad, isn't she? Though I feel like Symphonia and Madeleine are handling her rather well...
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