Midnight Reader – Flash Fiction

The door slowly opened, a crack of light, a two inch strip of yellow, illuminating the carpet up to the bed. Carefully, so as not to wake the lump under the covers on the bed, he snuck in on tip toe. He nearly let out a shriek as his bare foot connected with a small Lego.  The sharp cornered piece of hard plastic biting into the soft flesh of his arch.  He hopped and hobbled, trying not to bang into the desk, then the chair.  He caught the back of the chair as he started to lose his balance and the swiveling piece of furniture nearly upset his balance.  Quick moves on his part had him catching himself and stopping as a soft snore and breath from the body.  He didn’t move a muscle as the lump shifted and sprawled out, an arm sliding out of the covers and dropping the book off the side of the bed with a soft thud.  He waited for a moment, or five as the blanket covered lump shifted and grumbled about homework then went back to sleep.  With a quick dash, he scooped up the book, and circumvented the Legos and bits of erector set metal pieces to make it safely to the door again.  He glanced back once to see if there was movement.  Nothing. he was safe!

He propped himself under the covers, a large maglite flashlight in his palm.  He clicked on the light and flipped the pages.  He was looking for a mark…. There! Just a tiny dot and dash where he’d left off.  Knees hunched, pillow at his back, he shone the light down at the pages, and with a fingernail caught soundly between his teeth, he began to find out if the heroine was going to make it out of the forest on her own.

He nearly let out a shriek as the bed shifted and the covers were jerked back from his buried form.

The woman groaned.

“Jack, why don’t you just ask the kid if you can borrow his book while he’s at school,” the woman asked, shaking her head.

“Because, this is way more fun,” Jack replied. “Now quiet, woman, she just had to make a pact with someone,” he shushed his wife.

She just rolled her eyes and clicked off the light before diving under the covers with a flashlight and a copy of her 8 year old’s slightly sticky copy of a very popular diary of a wimpy sort of kid. She just had to find out what happened after a week wait while the book traveled with her son during summer camp.

I just thought, how fun when a clandestine moment happens when a parent reads a book their kids are reading. My dad would read to us growing up… Robert Peck’s Soup books. And my Mom read us the Happy Hollister books. Oh we had so many books they read us. But what if they read some of ours late at night…….. I just remember how much fun I had reading Laura Ingalls Wilder under the covers with a flashlight. Reading till 9pm.  Scandalous at age 8 or 9.  I still love to read under the covers. I now use a Kindle……

Kate

We Are Not Friends, But He Is Home – Prose

Photo by PHUOC LE on Unsplash

We are not friends. We are not lovers. We are something unknown. Standing side by side as confidants, secure in our random trust for each other. He is the strength and knowledge. The quiet before the storm. I am the storm. The whirlwind force. I am the fighting words, he is the calming down. He is the soft and waiting, I am the ready and diving in. Opposites attract, they say. We couldn’t be more different. Or more alike. He’s the future, I’m the past, or the present, or maybe I am the future. He’s tall, I am short. Side by side we stand arms intertwined. He leads, I follow. I direct, he bows down. It’s more than two people. It’s one entity standing against what? Who is to know. We aren’t friends just yet. Barely do I know more than his name, or the way he takes his coffee. But I know he has the world at his fingertips. He’s the answers. I’m the questions. We aren’t lovers. Though we could be. He’s the flowing winds. I’m the earth beneath your feet. Standing on a pedestal, he is king. Seated on a throne, I am a queen. Give and take, push and pull, I’d trust him with my life. We are not friends, but we will be one. We are not the lovers, yet we shall love. He bows to me, and I to him. He is home, and safety and rest. I am sleep, and strength and beginnings. We’ll step forth into the storm, a rock, marble, nothing tumbling us. We are the beginning.

 

I had this super vivid dream yesterday morning that left me kind of reeling. Where I met this man who was like this gentle giant. Tall, like really tall, like my head came only to the middle of his chest. And we barely knew each other, but we were going to work with each other and I was going to help him become this classically handsome guy, classy, and wearing button downs and sweaters and ties and looking all nerdy cute because he wrote for a newspaper. And we just had this connection and it was lovely, and I woke up wishing I could meet him because he was perfect, and it was the two of us against the world. So, I wrote something tonight. Whatever it is. Prose, poetry, fiction. Take it as you will. It was all lovely.

Sigh.

Kate

Don’t Make Me Come Up There – Flash Fiction

Photo by Ryan Hutton on Unsplash

“Don’t make me come up there,” he bellows at the sky. His face is murderous, the scowl etching deep lines into his forehead. The frown isn’t visible on his mouth as his thick beard covers from nose down.

“Darling, who in the world are you yelling at?” comes the soft, and slightly worried question from the woman leaning out of the sliding glass door. The light behind her casts her in an elegant silhouette and the burly man glances back at her, his scowl softening slightly.

“The damn twins are arguing again,” he mutters, jerking a thumb upwards towards the scintillating star-studded black sky framed by tall conifers.

The dainty woman arches a fine brow and glances upward. She doesn’t hear a thing; the forest is so dense and thick she can’t even hear the lake that is just a couple minute’s walk from the glamorous mountain home.

“I don’t hear anything,” she finally says, holding out her palm for him to take. He reaches out and his hand engulfs her, but he allows her to tug him back to the warmly lit interior. He gives one more ferocious glare back at the “silent” sky, then follows her back inside, sliding shut the door and pulling the blinds closed.

“Now where were we before you decided you needed to go out and yell at the sky?” she teases as she hands him back his half-drunk glass of wine and picking hers up as well.  She sinks into the sofa and tugs him towards her.

“When Cass and Pol start arguing, no one can hear a thing,” he mutters, settling down next to her.

She just shakes her head, not having a clue who he is talking about.

But how is she to know she is sitting next to a god?

What Shall We Downsize – Kitchen Fiction

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

It was the middle of the morning and the prep chefs  were  all chopping, mixing and making the general things ready for the night. She had her clipboard in hand as she went over her order for the day. The produce was due in and she needed to get her fish order settled. Sue and Riley were working on short crust dough. She shook her head as  she watched the young man go too heavy on mixing things with his hands causing a cascade of flour to poof out over the counter. She nearly laughed when Sue sighed loudly.

“Breathe, Sue,” she interjected as she walked by coffee cup in hand.  She heard Sue make a rude remark at her back and Riley apologizing profusely as he was prone to do.

“You’re doing fine, Riley,” she called behind her as she headed to the other side of the prep area to hunt down someone to enlist to help her. The order could wait an hour. She needed to do something that felt like she was accomplishing something.

She spied someone who was wiping down his station. Perfect. She nearly purred in satisfaction.

“Carlos!” she barked. The man looked up with a jerk. “What are you doing?”

He looked like a deer in the headlights. Even better.

“Uh, I was gonna start —”

“Nope. You’re gonna help me. You’ve just been promoted to help me organize the walk in!” she singsonged as she caught the sleeve of his chef’s jacket as he tried to slip past her.

Around her the snickers were audible enough for her to arch a brow at the various owners of the sounds. “Be careful, boys. One of you will end up next in line to help me.”

The complete silence was deafening. She turned back towards the first walkin pulling Carlos behind her. “Come along. It won’t take too long.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he sighed and followed her.

She pulled out her phone and tuned to her current favorite Pandora station. Dolly Parton singing about someone walking back into her life. It was her new anthem to listen to when she felt lost in the shuffle. Into a 9-pan went the phone to echo out in tinny fashion, the upbeat 70s tune.

She started pulling Cambros off the shelf, things half empty or out dated, handing them to Carlos to put on the prep table outside the refridgerated box. She made faces at things that went bad, gingerly handed off non labeled deli quarts and pints, sloshing containers.

“Out out out!” she was rolling her eyes at a 15 qt. Cambro that had about two quarts in the bottom of it. “Who keeps leaving Cambros mostly empty in here?” she yelled out the door knowing full well none of the people out there would answer. She was guilty of it a few times when in a hurry, but this was getting out of hand.

By the time she had just the containers out, half the walk-in was already done. She shook her head as she grabbed a painters tape roll and started rewriting labels to the newly downsized smaller cambros that Carlos was putting things into. Army, their new dishwasher was busy spraying down the empties and stacking them to go into the industrial dishwasher that was humming away.

New tape went onto the smaller containers with the updated date, she had Carlos load them back in the walk-in while she figured out what prep needed to be done now that amounts were diminished.

“Now what?” Carlos questioned as the door closed with a sucking airtight sound. 

“You. Bucket. Sani water. Scrub.” She grinned as he made a face. “Hey, I’m now on to downsizing the produce. You’ll live.”

She began by grabbing her clipboard, then began a systematic approach to the disorder of the fruits and vegetables. Sue and her were belting out a Crystal Gayle song as the guys in the kitchen rolled their eyes at the two women.  Root vegetables into like bins, she trimmed up carrots that were getting mouldy, apples with spots were put into a bin to be made into sauce.  The herbs were tidied, the citrus sorted and downsized. By the time she was done with the produce, she knew what she needed to order and Carlos had the walk-in walls and floor sparkling bright and smelling clean. 

“Much better. Now, onward to the meats and dairy,” she directed to the next walk-in. Carlos’s shoulders had a slightly defeated look, but she just ignored him. “Give me a quick count on the fish and what seafood we have while I make the produce order. Then we’ll tackle the rest of it together.”

She walked off, pulling out her phone  as Carlos headed towards meats. She grinned at the text from Micha asking how the day was going. She shot back a thumbs up and a couple pictures of the organized walk-in. She was dialing the produce number when she overheard one of the line cooks mocking Carlos being girl whipped. 

She paused and looked up to see George leaning in to another line cook, Kyle. “You two have just volunteered yourselves to go organize and clean all the dry storage. I want it all labeled and the shelves clean within the next hour.”

When they didn’t move she arched a brow. “Did I stutter?”

“No,” came the group answer.  

“Good, then hustle.”

Her quick text with a thumbs down and a frowny face went off to Micha. So close. She was so close to not getting so much pushback from the boys. Well, there would be other days. At least she could delight in a cleaner kitchen. Good days, take the good days.

She pushed the dial button and got ready to send off her order. Hopefully Carlos would count the fish right…..

 

Another scene into fictional kitchen. I’ve been the one cleaning the walkin lately. Downsizing and organizing on Sundays. The other day Jersey Boy told everyone to keep busy. Suddenly all the guys but Golden Oldie (dishwasher… name could change) were nowhere to be found. Shock. I can’t remember the last time I saw Will Turner clean something other than the line at the end of closing. Scrub the walkin? Right….

So anyways, the walk-in was organized on Sunday. Downsized. Emptied. Gads, it was empty. There will need to be a fair amount of prep done this week. I actually like it, and my proverbial ‘She/Her’ in this story likes it too. Still working on a name for her. I have a couple options but I haven’t decided yet. Oh and for those wondering, the Juice Newton Radio on Pandora is the bomb. So classic 70s and 80s country and light rock. So Dolly Parton and more. Try it out.

Kate

If It Was Only A Sabbatical – Flash Fiction Snippet

Photo by Alyson McPhee on Unsplash

Over the last year I have written down snippets and little plotlines, even dialogue of a cooking story that has no real basis other than just inserting some of it into my writing life. Since cooking and the restaurant world is so much a part o f my life these days, I can’t help but write about it. I have ideas of some sort of novel, maybe a bit biographical, but I’m not sure. Mostly it’s just playing around with scenes. So after Coffeeman left, I found myself channeling the situation in a different way. What if Coffeeman was leaving only for a sabbatical or something. It would be hard, but doable. Right now, doable is just survival. Surviving till the next change. Nothing so wonderful as sabbatical. (you would not believe how many times I’ve spelled that word wrong.)

So here is something I wrote in my journal on September 5th. With a few edits. Of course.

She let her knife sink into the freshest tomato, still nearly warm from the sun. Slice, slice, slice. Perfect rounds of flesh. It was all she could focus on right now. The prep list was too long, Micha was leaving in a few days, the boys in the kitchen, from line cook to dishwasher, were all acting up, and she was about ready to fall apart. Tired, apprehensive. Could she do what Micha had faith in her for? Did she know enough?

She was ready to swear at anyone who stepped out of line. A recent run in with a shelf, which had left a nasty bruise on her underarm, had left her swearing a blue streak that left all in earshot giving her a wide berth and wary look. She was nearly in tears when she bent back a fingernail after prying at a cambro.

“You know you’re going to be fine,” came Micha’s voice from her left, scaring her out of mind and musings. She let her knife hit the board with a whack and glared at him.

“Don’t do that!” she growled. He just chuckled at her and slid a coup of coffee over too her.She accepted it with a nod and leaned her hip against the counter with a sigh. He was sipping at one of his many cups that she found floating around the kitchen throughout the day.

“Have you taken a break and gotten something to eat?”

She shook her head the tiredness hitting her. The sadness. She was already missing him and the little things she knew were going to be gone. Things like him asking if she ate before her sugar dove and she started threatening everyone with bodily harm and a knife.

“Go eat something. Take ten and come back when you’ve done that. This will wait.

“Bu—”

“No buts, just go.” He shooed her with a direct look.

She made a face at him, but didn’t argue, setting her knife on a towel and heading off to the line to see if there was still some soup from an earlier family meal.

The French Laundry

Nothing much. A touch off of the characters from Just A Day, Just An Ordinary Day… Not – Flash Fiction because I like them and well, yeah. So enjoy. I’m picturing a very different kitchen than what I work in. Something along the kitchen from The French Laundry. It’s so open and pretty. I want a kitchen like that. When I first started working at my place, I was bummed by no windows and no clocks. We never knew what time it was. It was my own insane asylum. Now, I’ve gotten used to it, and I am out in front where the windows are a lot of the time so I can see out and it helps. But I still dream of open kitchens. Lots of windows and natural light. I think all our moods would be better.

Kate

“James, we’ve got to stop meeting like this…” – Flash Fiction

Photo by Rachael Henning on Unsplash

I rolled over, my head spinning, stomach revolting from the night before. I groaned and blinked to see if the spinning would stop. Nope. I shut my eyes again and breathed in shallow breaths. There was an ax trying to split my head right down between my eyes, needles were trying to push out of my eyes, and I was chasing cold sweats.

“James, we have got to stop meeting like this,” I muttered, remembering the several beers and shots through the revelry. It was great going down, but now on the flip-side, hours later, I wondered why I kept thinking I could down that much alcohol without consequences.

Like the one that just rolled over and put his arm over me. “Babe, who is James, and could you stop the room from spinning?”

“Brian.” I groaned, remembering who had brought me home. Ex boyfriends and booze were a bad mix.

“James. As in Jameson,” I replied and reached for the glass of water on my nightstand. The headache and dizzy would go away with a couple of aspirin. Too bad Brian wasn’t going to be that easy to get rid of. Yeah, Jamesons and ex boyfriends were a horrible mix…

Had a little too much fun last night and the consensus with one of my girlfriends was “James, was not a good idea after the beer.” Little too dizzy, migraine and nausea made for a not so great night of sleep. Hydrate, people. And avoid James.

Kate

Weekend Batman – Flash Fiction

Photo by TK Hammonds on Unsplash

“Sir,” droned Alfred’s voice, holding the black telephone on a silver tray. “Inspector Gordon has been trying to reach you. The Bat-signal has been on and you haven’t’ responded.

The sigh was audible as Bruce stood up and scratched his chin where the stubble had formed over the weekend. 

“Who’s the villain this time, Alfred?” Bruce stretched, arching and cracking his back before scuffing his way toward the cave, motioning for Dick , who was sprawled out on the sofa, to follow.

“Just a giant cyborg stomping through Gotham. Appears the Joker is manipulating it from the head.” Alfred followed behind as the duo headed through the tunnels

“Easy peasy, we’ll be back in time to see the rest of the match,” Bruce pushed the button for his jet and grabbed a mask off the prototypes table.

He had just stepped into the pilots seat when Dick stopped him.

“Uh, Bruce?”

“What?”

Dick motioned to Bruce’s attire which consisted of a black and yellow Batman t-shirt, blue gym shorts, white socks and Birkenstocks.  “Can you be Batman in that outfit?”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at his sidekick.  Then he slid on the mask that just covered his eyes. The stubble was still their, and the hair, well, bedhead was a mild understatement.

“Of course.”  The voice had dropped an octave and was now the ‘Batman’ voice. “Now grab a mask and get in,” he growled, starting the engines.

Dick grabbed another one of the masks off the table and put it on before climbing into the passenger’s seat.

“Besides, Robin, I’m sure you can still do your thing in that getup,” Batman said as the hatch opened above and the jet began to rise. 

Robin looked down at the flipflops, basketball jersey and shorts in his signature red, green and yellow.

Boy, the Joker was gonna have a field day with this caper.

 

Great Scott! I had a dream last week where I was helping this guy make a cake for his niece, on a stupid equipment table, then looking out the apartment building you saw this giant robot powered in the head by a villain, and suddenly this guy was putting on the superhero mask and was Batman in t-shirt, gym shorts and Birkenstocks or whatever. I asked him if he could be Batman without the gear, because I guess I was the sidekick. The “Batman” replied  that, “of course he could, before we were spiraling down in a plane to take on this robot.

Needless to say, the dream sparked the question to my coworkers, can Batman be Batman without the cape, if he were just in shorts and a t-shirt. It earned an emphatic, ‘YES!’ which didn’t surprise me as all my coworkers were guys…. But it stuck in my head, for days.  Then Dona posted this cute little thing that had the synchronicity lining up and I thought, “Yes! I have to write this flash fiction piece.”

I’m not sure I got it all quite right, terminology wise, but it is just a bit of fun. Something light I haven’t done in a while. I’ve always loved Batman and Bruce Wayne stuff, so this was incredibly fun.

Kate

Just A Day, Just An Ordinary Day… Not – Flash Fiction

“Joe, make it a double…”
Photo by Brent Gorwin on Unsplash

I’m taking a bit of flash fiction from earlier in the year and reworking it. So if you all read this one before, well I’ve changed it some.  I have this idea of the gal, G, or Gigi, or something… is a sous chef or working her way up to that, and another sous chef comes in, they meet, fall in love, bla bla bla, but  haven’t put the pieces together. I like that my world gives me inspiration. I love that the guys I work with are like brothers. Idiots, complete and total kids, I could smack all of them half the time. I write down the random conversations I’ve had with them, or points of interest because kitchen talk is not like any talk I’ve had anywhere else. I joke with the people in back that the reason we are in the back is because we couldn’t be out front. It’s funny and hard and I’m glad I can write about it. This was once based on other things but I’ve realized that I have this guy in my head for a Chef that’s like Jon Favreau from the film Chef, only thinner. Someone that’s like this giant teddy bear of a guy. I kind of want to work for him.  He seems like he would be passionate and fun. Gads, I’ve been in this world too long….*smacks forehead*

 

He wore a brimmed fisherman’s knit cap, dark and dingy hoodie, converse tennis shoes, thick frame Elvis Costello glasses, anyone could have taken him as a hipster or college student, but for the gray invading the scruffy week’s stubble and curls in the dark hair at the base of his neck. Writer, she mused. Had to be with the pen and spread paper. Or maybe one of those cool professors. She was scribbling the description down in her ever present notebook. Filled with a weird curio of curiosities from random bits of poetry, recipes, lines from a movie, song lyrics, and random ass fiction, it was a writers delight and a view of who she was as a person. Dangerous in the wrong hands.

“Or maybe he’s just doing the crossword puzzle,” Micha said over her shoulder nearly making her shriek at his stealthiness. He had slipped up behind her and glanced at her notes before his devilishly deep, rich voice crawled up her spine. 

She sighed as he came around into her line of sight and she tried to calm her racing heart that had decided to go galloping around in her chest. The damn man loved to scare her. And he was good at it.  Like a brother, he teased her mercilessly and was too good at it. Thankfully she could smack him when he was close. Unfortunately he walked by and went up to the counter to order his drink and was too far out of reach. She debated tossing her scone at him, but the blueberry delight was too delicious and she didn’t want to share.

Micha was the perfect boss. Fun to be around, a bit of a dreamer, talented, creative, pragmatic, a wild pain in the ass. Okay, maybe that last one wasn’t so great.  He was this perfect combination of soft planes and hard edges. The glasses softened his face, when he deemed to wear them. Today he was. Rimmed rectangle lenses and tapered navy blue temples. Spiked hair today. He must have been playing in gel, she noted as he slung off his leather jacket and ordered a double espresso latte.

“He’s doing the crossword,” Micha smirked as he sat down across from her with his first of many coffees of the day.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Smartass.”

“Better than a dumbass,” they both finished together, and while he chuckled, she rolled her eyes.

“So, plans today?”

“You know. Just an ordinary day. Scrub out the walk-in and organize the freezers.”

She groaned.

“What? You knew it was coming.”

“That is not ordinary!” she wailed. “I seriously do not have enough caffeine in my system for this.” She raised her hand to signal the young guy at the counter. ‘Joe, better make me another. It’s gonna be a long day.” She flipped the page in her notebook and started making lists.

“We could just wing it,” he supplied casually.

She arched her left brow at him and tilted her head down looking over the rim of her glasses.

“You are way too chipper about this. What should I be afraid of?” her voice was filled suspicion.

“The produce order comes in at noon and the beef order at 3, and I kind of want this all done before then…”

“Oh god. And?”

“Emily and I have reservations, so I will be gone by 5…..”

“I hate you.”

“I know. Want to get started?” He grinned.

She could smack him….

So, enjoy. This was a fun bit to write and fits into a cooking novel I am plotting.

Kate

Personal Hells

This post is coming after a thing happened with a writing thing with a work thing, with a too personal thing, with well, being a writer just isn’t always an excuse. It kind of all relates to my personality, a lot of which people don’t always get. Heck, even I am still figuring myself out daily.

The first part of my job with my restaurant was hell. A personal hell. Oh sure, there were good moments, and the opportunity was something amazing, but chef #1 and Lucifer were personal hells. They each had their moments that left me crying most of my time after or prior to work. It was because of #1 that I quit one month in and was hesitant to come back, but I liked the job. Lucifer, while a charmer in his own way, became another personal hell.  I doubt myself a lot. Even now with the support of come amazing people, I spend my time doubting myself and selling myself short and worrying that I am disappointing people and always ready to wince and take the blame. In the words of Topenga, or maybe it was Shawn, on Boy Meets World directed at Cory… I want people to like me. It is a fault. It is why I am not always assertive. It gets me into trouble.  And I doubt myself a lot. Even now.

The first six months of my job did not encourage me to have confidence, so when the new boss came on, I think I became this slightly over exuberant puppy. I am a people pleaser. So  I tend to come off as reeaaaalllly exuberant about certain things. I don’t always think about consequences and I would say, what you see is what you get, a lot of the time. Crushed easily, excited easily, a bit neurotic, oh very, very blonde… (“what are you smoking?” ‘Nothing, Chef, I’m blonde. That pretty much answers it.”) <—- true conversation. If I think of something at 3am, I will text you even if you are asleep because, I am awake, why aren’t you? I know I will forget it by morning. I forget other people have lives that do not include my weirdass sleeping schedule.

People think I’m flirting when I’m being nice. I am uber nice. I am the “Oh Kate will do that,” person. (Even when I don’t want to obligation fills me with grief if I don’t do it.) Guys have thought I was flirting with them when I was just being nice. Trust me, I’m not. I do the stupid hair twirl thing when I’m flirting, which I don’t flirt, because I don’t know how to flirt as I never understood what the hell it was supposed to be like. (That’s another long ramble not for here)

It makes life rather frustrating at times. And currently, I can cry at the drop of a hat. You would laugh if you heard me say I love my job and am relatively happy but then say I can cry that easily.  While I love my job, I have not necessarily dealt super well with my role in my job. I stress about coworkers, I stress about coworkers lives, how it’s affecting my life, whether or not things are getting done at work, to my standards, to Chef’s standards, worrying, micro managing, and just all around stressing. It’s made me tired and prone to crying. Just ask three people tonight that I was talking to, oh, pardon, four; and I couldn’t keep the tears in check.

Part of that comes off of removing my piece of flash fiction from earlier. It was just taken the wrong way, for which I am crushed that I might have jeopardized anything within the weird, close, family structure of a restaurant. As Sassy Girl said tonight, kitchen life is stressful. We find our outlets, be it alcohol, crying, snarling, writing, hanging out with friends. It’s a stressful life, and I am not always sure what outlet to use. Writing is an outlet that I like to use, but also like to share, but also forget how public it can be. I haven’t written a lot lately because I have been so busy and my little flash piece was this utter excitement that I had written something fun for a change instead of Night Shift Notes on what was or wasn’t done in the kitchen (goddammit!) I forget that it isn’t always a private thing to ‘share’ your writing. So I hadn’t thought when I pushed the publish button.

I might take a step back from writing so much about kitchen life for a while. I’m not sure. I am trying to figure out the best outlet at the end of the night when the adrenaline is still high. I haven’t figured it out. I don’t know what to do. I want to bounce around walls, and drink coffee, and drink a glass of something buzzworthy and write and sing and do who knows what. I am having a hard time finding the outlet. Hey, anyone with restaurant experience want to give me some ideas of outlets. (Exercise is not one I want to do, so don’t suggest it.)

Anyways. Exuberant puppy me probably needs to tone it down. Writer me needs to tone it down. And hopefully life will continue on without any speedbumps. Today was a detour. Now let’s get back to the main road.

Kate

Just a Dream – Flash Fiction – Character Profiles

Intro: Gosh, I love being a writer. There I was sitting at a coffeeshop in Ashland, Bloomsbury Books, to be exact. I was finally eating something that was staying down and calming down after feeling lousy most of the day. I sat there with my cafe au lait watching the goings on and decided to do a character sketch/profile which morphed to a bit of flash fiction. Note on subject. It is modeled after aspects of my life and people in my life and even some emotions I’ve felt, but no one will know which ones are true or made up. The prerogative of a writer. We embellish. So if anyone reads this, IE boss or friends, remember. I am first and foremost a writer and dreamer.  Everything can and will be used in my writing.

 

He wore a brimmed fisherman’s knit cap, dark and dingy hoodie, converse tennis shoes, thick frame Elvis Costello glasses, anyone could have taken him as a hipster or college student, but for the gray invading the scruffy week’s stubble and curls in the dark hair at the base of his neck. Writer, she mused. Had to be with the pen and spread paper. Or maybe one of those cool professors.

“Or maybe he’s just doing the crossword puzzle,” Micha said over her shoulder nearly making her shriek at his stealthiness. He had slipped up behind her and glanced at her notes before his devilishly deep, rich voice crawled up her spine. 

She sighed as he came around into her line of sight and she tried to calm her racing heart that had decided to go galloping around in her chest. The damn man loved to scare her. And he was good at it. And it really was a shame that he was taken. As much as he killed her sanity daily, was like an older brother and all, that didn’t mean she didn’t have eyes.

Micha was edgy. She was not. Not even close. He was this perfect combination of soft planes and hard edges. The glasses softened his face, when he deemed to wear them. Today he was. Rimless rectangle lenses and tapered black temples. Spiked hair. He must have been playing in gel, she noted as he slung off his leather jacket and ordered a double espresso latte.

Hmm, diamond studs in his ears; must be going out with his wife later. Lucky girl.

She was only slightly jealous. They would have never worked as a couple, being too alike in moods, vices, interests, and even irritations. Plus, she loved Elle, his wife of 6 years. Two point five kids, a dog, house….yeah he had it all. No, she didn’t want him, she was more jealous of the dream. Oh sure, he was nice to look at, quite nice, actually, and one of her best friends. She was oh so good, she wasn’t dead. He was easy on the eyes.

“He’s doing the crossword,” Micha smirked as he sat down across from her with his first of many coffees of the day.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Smartass.”

“Better than a dumbass,” they both finished together, and while he chuckled, she rolled her eyes.

“So, plans today?”

“Scrub out the walk-in and organize the freezers.”

She groaned.

“What? You knew it was coming.”

“I seriously do not have enough caffeine in my system for this.” She raised her hand to signal the young guy at the counter. ‘Joe, better make me another. It’s gonna be a long day.” She pulled out her notebook and started making lists.

“We could just wing it,” he supplied casually.

She arched her left brow at him and tilted her head down looking over the rim of her glasses.

“You are way too chipper about this. What should I be afraid of?” her voice was filled suspicion.

“The produce order comes in at noon and the beef order at 3, and I kind of want this all done before then…”

“Oh god. And?”

“Elle and I are going to the cabaret at 5.”

“I hate you.”

“I know. Want to get started?” He grinned.

She could smack him….

So, enjoy. This was a fun bit to write and fits into a cooking novel I am plotting.

Kate