Saturday's Storyteller: "She wiped her mouth and drunkenly slurred at the mailbox, 'I'll fuckin' show you.'"
by Belinda Roddie
She wiped her mouth and drunkenly slurred at the mailbox, "I'll fuckin' show you. I'll crush you with my bare hands and use you for scrap metal. I'll turn you into a fuckin' art piece. I'll put you in a local exhibit and call you 'Garbage.' 'Cause you're garbage. Garbage, I say! Garbage!"
She continued to rant and rave, flailing her arms, as a handful of her neighbors filed out along the sidewalk to witness the display. Francine, the old lady who made brownies every week for the block, stood next to Graham, the retired police officer, and sighed.
"Is this because Zoe didn't get her Super Box subscription on time again?" she asked.
Graham nodded. "Though I think this is the first time she's smashed an empty whiskey bottle against her mailbox before."
"I'll turn you into a storage box of shame, damn you!" Zoe snarled from across the street.
Graham sighed and rubbed his white hair with a wrinkled hand. "Call Gary again. He'll calm her down with some of his stash."
Gary was the neighborhood stoner, and he always had an arsenal on hand. This time, however, Francine knew Gary wouldn't help. "Being crossfaded will just make it worse, dude," he'd say, furrowing his brow and accenting the red, bulging veins in his eyes. No, there'd have to be a different strategy now.
Zoe was now stomping on the shards of her drained bottle with her heavy boots. Luckily, none of the pieces of glass pierced her feet.
"Take that, mailbox!" she screamed. "See how you kill everything I love?!"
"What's the deal with that Super Box, anyway?" Malcolm, the techie who lived in the big house at the end of the street, quipped. "I subscribed to it for one month. All I got was a T-shirt with a bad rendition of Superman on it. Oh, and some generic troll figurines."
"I collect troll figurines!" piped up little Piper, who was only five and collected anything that was ugly enough.
"Let's just wait this out," Graham finally suggested, now realizing what Francine had already thought about Gary. "She'll get tired."
And so Zoe did, curling up into a ball on a patch of grass in her front yard.
"Next time, villain," she whispered to her postal nemesis, seemingly unaware of the small crowd watching her, before drifting into an awkward sleep.
This week's prompt was provided by José GarcÃa.
She wiped her mouth and drunkenly slurred at the mailbox, "I'll fuckin' show you. I'll crush you with my bare hands and use you for scrap metal. I'll turn you into a fuckin' art piece. I'll put you in a local exhibit and call you 'Garbage.' 'Cause you're garbage. Garbage, I say! Garbage!"
She continued to rant and rave, flailing her arms, as a handful of her neighbors filed out along the sidewalk to witness the display. Francine, the old lady who made brownies every week for the block, stood next to Graham, the retired police officer, and sighed.
"Is this because Zoe didn't get her Super Box subscription on time again?" she asked.
Graham nodded. "Though I think this is the first time she's smashed an empty whiskey bottle against her mailbox before."
"I'll turn you into a storage box of shame, damn you!" Zoe snarled from across the street.
Graham sighed and rubbed his white hair with a wrinkled hand. "Call Gary again. He'll calm her down with some of his stash."
Gary was the neighborhood stoner, and he always had an arsenal on hand. This time, however, Francine knew Gary wouldn't help. "Being crossfaded will just make it worse, dude," he'd say, furrowing his brow and accenting the red, bulging veins in his eyes. No, there'd have to be a different strategy now.
Zoe was now stomping on the shards of her drained bottle with her heavy boots. Luckily, none of the pieces of glass pierced her feet.
"Take that, mailbox!" she screamed. "See how you kill everything I love?!"
"What's the deal with that Super Box, anyway?" Malcolm, the techie who lived in the big house at the end of the street, quipped. "I subscribed to it for one month. All I got was a T-shirt with a bad rendition of Superman on it. Oh, and some generic troll figurines."
"I collect troll figurines!" piped up little Piper, who was only five and collected anything that was ugly enough.
"Let's just wait this out," Graham finally suggested, now realizing what Francine had already thought about Gary. "She'll get tired."
And so Zoe did, curling up into a ball on a patch of grass in her front yard.
"Next time, villain," she whispered to her postal nemesis, seemingly unaware of the small crowd watching her, before drifting into an awkward sleep.
This week's prompt was provided by José GarcÃa.
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