Monday, January 21, 2013

I thought you were dead


 This flash fiction exercise was written Jan. 21, 2013 with the trigger WI thought you were dead."
 Elderly woman in swimming pool

“I thought you were dead.” Janice stood open mouthed in front of old woman. Old in age, not in appearance.

“Why would you think that, honey?”

I called and called and there was no answer not for a week. Her grandmother was the most aggravating person she knew. No matter how Janice tried to get her to slow down, the woman just wouldn’t. Monday book clubs, Tuesday bowling, Wednesday house cleaning, Thursday golf in summer, gym in winter, Friday movie no matter what was playing. Some of the things her grandmother saw at the local Cineplex were not suitable . . . James Bond for God sake’s. All that action could lead to a heart attack.

Her grandmother was bustling around the kitchen preparing tea for the two of them. At least tea preparation was something grandmothers were supposed to do, but the Oreos should have been homemade not store bought, although Janice knew that Oreos weren’t ever homemade but chocolate chip cookies would be nice.


“It wish you would ring the bell before coming in,” Grandma said. 

She was thin, too thin to make Janice happy. “Are you eating well? Enough?” Janice asked.

“You should have seen the steak, Tom and I put away last night?”

“Tom?”

“My new beau. Met him at the gym.”

Janice wondered if he were a fortune hunter, although he’d be disappointed.

“Why don’t you come with us for lunch? Bring that fella of yours. Sunday?”

Were they that serious? What would Jared say when she said they would eat with her and her grandmother and grandma’s boy friend. They couldn’t be sleeping together.

“Don’t worry, we both use protection,” Grandma said as if she could read Janice’s mind.

Janice wondered with the twinkle in her eye if she were teasing.” “You’re not . . . I mean . . .at your age.”
“My age is 69. Sometimes, my darling granddaughter, I think your mind is older than mine. You worry too much. Get over it.”

They are rather to difficult to get on the older radios.



 As often as possible another writer and I get together to free write using a trigger. Our trigger is a random line taken from a book. This was written Jan. 21.


Antique radio 
“They are rather difficult to get on the older radios,” he said to her.

Entering the shop was like entering into another world or at least another time. Instead of long spacious aisles with lights that would outdo the sun, the shop was dark and crowded. An antique dealer, who specialized in told radios, telephones and televisions, would think he’d cornered the market. Or maybe this man had cornered the market in this type of thing, which certainly wasn’t Andrea’s.

Andrea was all into the latest gadget. She didn’t quite line up to buy the latest iPhone the morning they went on dale, but she would be in the Apple store within the week.

The man behind the counter should also be out of time with gray hair and a pot belly but this man was probably around her age and she guessed under his Harvard sweatshirt he had a great body. He certainly had a great smile.

Andrea put her grandfather’s radio on the pristine counter top. Somehow it seemed the shop should be dusty but it wasn’t.

“Just a tube,” she said. “My grandfather would love to be able to listen to this radio again.”

She’d snuck the radio out of the nursing home when he was away having medical tests. Even when it stopped working, he kept it by his bedside. His wife, who had died five years before, had given it to him and when he was told he could bring five personal things to the nursing home, that was the first thing he had chosen.

The man took down a similar radio, switched tube after tube, stopping each time to turn the radio on.
“Traffic is heavy over the Southeast Expressway,” the radio blared and the young man lowered the volume. That will be $5.75.

Andrea took the radio and knew how happy her grandfather would be and returned to the current day world.