My schedule has been an odd mix of hectic (it’s phase two of audit season) and dead (afternoons between meetings when I should be working but the horrible phase one has got me a little wiped out). Home has been a blur of homework before quarter exams, a huge consignment sale where we washed, tagged and hung over 200 items of clothing for sale, and a whole bunch of PTA and church stuff.
This is the long way around to explaining that I wrote this week’s FFF pieces on the bus, going home in the dark, as my really bright screen kept the nice young lady next to me awake (well, awake until she started snoring…)
With bad traffic, I had plenty of time to come up with several bad ideas, which were deleted, until the four you have today coalesced out of the evening mist and settled upon my keyboard like slightly contaminated dew on an industrial parking lot.
I closed my laptop, happy with the ride and the writing. As I stuck it (my laptop, you dirty minded letch, nothing euphemistic there) in my bag, I realized that not once did I use the required phrase anywhere. I remembered the 38-word minimum, and used it twice, but the words totally escaped me.
Therefore, it is with pained delight, that I give you this week’s FFF
They all had their turn, one after another, some tender, some hard, some angry, some painfully shy, but, they all had their turn.
Later, she brushed off the guard as she stood back stage, “I’m with the band.” (38 words)
She did as she was told, folding her clothes and stacking them by the door of the darkened room. The spotlight illuminated the headset on the carpet. She walked over and sat down, put them on, and waited. What would it be? Music? Instructions? Discipline? Pain? Release? Love or Judgment? Acceptance? His voice held them all and her ears gladly listened. (61 words)
“I flew all the way here for this?” She flung the headset into the dark corners of the room when she realized he was not there. “Where are you?” she screamed.
“You knew the plan,” he said, disembodied.
“I know.” She picked up the sat down, dejected, and held the headphones in her hand. “I just hoped for more.”
“Listen”, he said
She slipped on the twin speakers and his voice filled her head with ideas.
After, she pulled them off her head and laid breathing, exhausted, played spent, tender.
“What’s next?” She sighed.
“A change of plans”
(98 words)
The puppy heard the bell and leapt up, hungry, drooling profusely.
The research assistant shook her head, “Stupid dog.”
Later, as she plugged in and listened to his voice mail, she realized she owed the dog an apology. (38 words)
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