The exercise:
Write about: the store clerk.
Edit: looks like I've hit the limit for the unique number of labels the blog can have (2,000 in case you were wondering). Guess I'll have to get creative with the labels I already have. And maybe, if I have time, finding similar labels and gathering them under one unique label in order to free up some space. Doesn't seem like it would make much of a difference long term though.
Only took me twelve years to run into this problem...
3 comments:
Twelve years of posting every day isn't bad for finally finding the limits of the tags! And maybe having to pan to re-use tags will give you new prompt inspiration?
Store Clerk
We looked where Ben was pointing, and sure enough there was a building, tarpaper and wood construction like everything else here, that looked like it had fallen down and nobody could be bothered to fix it. I looked a little harder though and noted that the base was three rows of bricks that disappeared into the dirt beneath, and that gave me pause for thought.
"That's Marv's," said Jimmy. "It is the general store, though actually it's the only store. Unless you count Josie's as a store, but I'd say it's more of a diner."
"Look at the bricks," I said, nudging Ben as we dismounted from the burros. They yawned their relief, and I rubbed my backside hard, trying to get the blood to flow back into it again. That might have been less well-thought-out than I'd like to admit to given as I hear the rips in my jeans get a little bit bigger.
"Looks like there's a room down there that's a bit better built," said Ben just as quietly. "Jimmy might be right, yet."
"What are you two ladies gossiping about?" asked Jimmy, picking up the halter ropes from the burros and tying them to a post that looked like it had been planted there since the Civil War.
"Trying to guess what a diner out here would look like," said Ben. "I'm guessing that there's no hope for red-eye gravy on my biscuits?"
"I reckon there's no hope for biscuits," I said. "What does a store clerk here sell then? Any chance of solid gold knick-knacks, blueberries and whatever else Ben said?"
"Everything," said Jimmy. He thought about that for a moment. "Well, everything that he can. Everything he's got is pretty much for sale." All three of looked at the cracked and warped wood, bleached by the long, hot summer days, and the broken glass panes in the window. Ben wiped sweat from his forehead, and I just sighed.
"Let's go eat," I said. "Food's been missing me. Where's this diner then?"
Jimmy led us around the back of the general outhouse and down a gentle slope in the direction of the creek and the gulch, and then we stepped down some stairs rough-cut into the ground. They were smoothed and marbled and I could see at a glance that when it rained they just turned into a mudslide and probably had to be hacked out again. Under an overhang of some rock, but mostly root-laced earth, was a long strip of tin, or maybe aluminium, that served as a roof over a table that would seat twelve, seats for eight and plates for five. Behind the table there was a field-kitchen of sorts; there were pots, pans and a chopping board. There was a big knife that might have been rusty or bloody, too hard to tell at a distance, some vegetables and some meat with flies buzzing around it. There was an iron stove with a large blackened kettle set on it, and a firepit with a spit set over it. Even still, my stomach rumbled.
"Definitely no chance of biscuits," I said.
"That's Josie," said Jimmy, pointing to a brute of a man with five-day greying stubble, a belly that would make a walrus proud, a stained white vest and stained-yellow teeth, and an eye-patch. "He's the cook."
"I'm too hungry to go complaining about the dress-code," said Ben. "I reckon that if the meat's over the fire for long enough it'll be good."
I nodded agreement and jingled the coins in my pocket. When Jimmy didn't take the hint, I pulled a couple out and squinted at them: we'd picked up a bag of them a couple of towns back from nowhere important to this tale, and I didn't know how far this particular currency travelled. They looked silver though.
"Here Jimmy," I said, giving him six. "See what you can get with that in the way of cooked meat and something the right side of biscuits and gravy."
"None of the green stuff," said Ben. "That looks poisonous to me. And if he's got any cigars, I'll have a look at them."
"Might throw in a glass or two of whiskey while you're at it," I said. "A man can get thirsty when he's been ballooning all day. And all night."
Greg - yeah, the themed Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays obviously prolonged things. We'll see how this changes things going forward.
Oh, jeeze. Thoughts and prayers for their bellies and what they're about to (attempt to) consume.
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