Shoe: A Drabble

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Shoe, and the extra challenge is that the shoe begins or ends its journey on the side of the road. Check out her blog for the rules. Here's mine:

 

Mr. Olson had smelly shoes. Everyone knew it: his students, his colleagues, his wife. He, too, was aware of his fetid feet. But today he had a plan.

 

When classes ended, he walked to the faculty lot, removed his offensive loafers, tied their laces together, and hung them over his sedan's side view mirror. Then he drove home barefoot, confident that his stinky shoes would air out in the wind. 

 

Unfortunately, though, his loafers went on the lam, and to everyone's delight, he was forced to buy new ones. But he smiled, knowing it wouldn't be long before he could conduct his experiment again.

Dye

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Dye. Check out her blog for the rules.

For my drabble, I decided to use dye in an idiomatic sense:

Jason was a collector of untruths, a prevaricator of the blackest dye. His life was built upon lies. When he was five, Miss Ferguson asked if he preferred peanut butter or bologna. He said peanut butter because he knew it was the answer she wanted to hear; he actually hated both. That was just the beginning. The lies spiraled, growing more serious as the years passed--lies about grades, about high school parties, about where he was at two a.m. last Saturday, about the last time he had seen Nadine alive. For him, lies were the new truth--and he was just fine with that.

Hourglass

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Hourglass. Check out her blog for the rules.

I decided to use the idea of the hourglass--the fact that it measures time--as the basis for my drabble:

Jake caught Ava's eye. "Is it time yet?" he whispered.

"I can't see the clock." Ava's voice was low. Speaking was forbidden, and there were penalties for those who were caught.

"What kind of psychopath would do this to someone?" Jake said, louder this time, and Beth, seated to his left, giggled.

"Silence!" shouted a voice from the front of the room.

Beth raised a book in front of her face, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter, and Jake scowled, muttering under his breath. "She's such a b--"

A bell rang, cutting off Jake's words.

"Okay, everyone. Time for recess," the psychopath/teacher said.

Silence

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Silence. Check out her blog for the rules.

An unnatural silence jarred Adam awake. He squinted at the clock. 3:31 a.m. He never woke this early. Farmwork exhausted him, transporting him to a dreamless sleep that ended only with the bleating of his 5 a.m. alarm. Yet even in sleep he was somehow always aware of night noises: owls, wind, cars... But this night felt different. Quiet. Expectant. Like the trees, the night creatures, even the air were holding their breath, waiting for something. A storm? An attack? Something that hid in shadows? He threw off the covers and stood, parting the curtains. All he saw was the reflection of his own haunted eyes.

Light

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Light. Check out her blog for the rules.

When Stacey left the Piggly Wiggly, she found Joe leaning against her Honda.

"Got a light?" he asked, holding up a cigarette.

"No." Stacey stepped around him and unlocked the driver's door. As she opened it, he touched her shoulder.

"Stacey, wait."

"Look," she said, facing him. "You have to stop following me. We agreed we needed space to figure things out. We can't do that if you keep showing up at my job." She sighed. "I need time, Joe. Okay?"

"But you're my light," he said, gazing forlornly at his Marlboro.

Stacey rolled her eyes, got in her car, and drove away.

Rain

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Rain. Check out her blog for the rules.

 

She could feel it coming. Her old bones ached, and there was a crackling in the air. Something big was about to hit. Leaning heavily on her cane, she rose from her chair and shuffled to the window, parting the faded curtains. The sky had that greenish tint her ma had insisted foretold horrendous thunderstorms and tornadoes that tore angry paths across the fields, and the leaves of the ancient maples near the barn displayed their undersides, flashing their own storm warning. She turned away and sighed. It would be here soon. She'd lived through so many already. When would her luck run out?

Wind

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Wind. Check out Aheila's blog for the rules.

Here's mine, which turned out to be more like a vignette than a true drabble:

Maggie had heard the story so many times that she had begun to believe the great wind had torn an angry path across her land, leaving nothing but the detritus of a life hard-lived. But the story was an ancestor's, passed down with detail so vivid that everyone who heard lived it, feeling the wind's fury and grieving the loss of the only life they'd known.

Maggie is old now, and the years haven't been kind. But her memory remains, and that story she's called to tell. So she gathers her grandchildren before her and begins: "Many years ago there was a great and angry wind..."

Guest

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Guest, and the trick is to avoid the "unwanted guest" twist. Check Aheila's blog for the rules.


Guest 

"Do you think they'll be here today?"

"I think so. The weather's certainly nice enough. It's a beautiful day for a picnic."

"Yes, it is quite lovely. Is someone watching for them?"

"Ed and his crew are keeping an eye on the riverbank, and I have Cindy Lou and Earl posted at the top of the hill. Don't worry. We'll see them."

"Good. I hope they come soon. I'm starving."

 ***

"They're here! They're spreading out their blanket near the river."

"It's about time."

"I agree. Okay, fall in, everyone. It's rude to keep our guests waiting. Ants, march!"

Steel

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Scenery. The challenge is to write a description with no dialogue or action. You can find the rules at Aheila's blog.

I've written my drabble from the perspective of a small-town guy who finds himself plunked down in the middle of a large city:

The sound of footsteps slip-slapping their way down sidewalks overflowing with rivers of humanity is barely discernible among the honks of angry horns and the drone of voices: people shouting, faces contorted, into cell phones, arms and hands raised, gesturing, punctuating the points they make. It never stops; there's no such thing as quiet in a place where steel kisses the blue-gray sky, and below ground, still more steel worms its way through the earth: trains rumbling, stopping, spitting out people like products on an assembly line, urging them to emerge from beneath and join the human stream, anonymous and somehow alone.

Eggs

Aheila's Drabble Day prompt this week is Seek, and the twist is the "find." You can find the rules at her blog.

Steven was searching. He'd sit in outdoor cafés, watching women as they strolled by, heels clicking, ponytails swinging, cell phones pressed to their ears. Sometimes he'd toss money on his table and follow one, watching as she window-shopped and then fabricating excuses to talk to her. He had plenty of excuses--and charm. 

If all went well, he'd ask her out. They'd date; eventually, she'd spend the night. In the morning, he'd ask if she'd cook breakfast; most would. And he'd wait, hoping he'd finally found the woman who could make his eggs the way he liked them.

Work!

This is my first time participating in Aheila's Drabble Day. This week's prompt was garden:

 

The sun was hot on Ed's back, and he took off his hat, wiped the sweat from his forehead. The tilling was difficult, the soil rocky, but he did what he was told. He would be stupid not to.

 

He looked to his left, where exhaustion had brought Clyde to the ground, his face resting in the warmth of the earth. Ed longed to put his head down and sleep, never mind the tilling, the planting. Never mind the death.

 

But he wouldn't be stupid.

 

He jumped as he heard the click of the gun behind him. "Work!" someone shouted, and he picked up his shovel.