A new habit planned – short fiction Fridays. Another term for them would be ‘flash fiction.’ Today’s posting is more of a fragment, inspired by a shared prompt from a fellow writer, involving characters from the NaNoWriMo project of 2011.
The prompt given was the first paragraph – a seed of a scene shared by a fellow writer who couldn’t get it to ‘bloom’ the way it began. Here is my continuation of that proffered part:
Accidental Discovery
He just sat there looking at her, poking the toast point in and out of the fried egg, making a sloshing and sucking noise with the egg yolk. He laughed inside his head. She looked terrified.
“Honestly, it isn’t the first time you’ve called me by my brother’s name,” Royce said determined to keep his face expressionless. “You’ve done it a number of times. Never in front of friends or on our anniversary, thank you very much.”
“And you’ve never said a word,” Maggie said, the cup of cold coffee still held in midair, knuckles white around the handle. Her determination not to count aloud to three in the five languages she knew, her resolve not to shower him with the bitter brewed beverage was something only a magician could accomplish, he thought.
“Well, like, ya know, it’s totally, like a dangerous, like, quest, to see why you do such a thing, ya know?” Royce knew his feeble attempt at Valley-speak would have earned him a glare and a high heel thrown at him from his sister, Gail; a worrying look over the glasses from Danny.
Maggie’s quiet response would have reduced anyone else to ashes. Not the wounded soldier/son who had seen every variation of hell, from desert to high-water.
Clearing his throat, Royce chose his next words with care. “My theory to the ‘Freudian slips’ as your former field would call them? Either you were channeling your sister because Danny screwed up significantly; or that was your variation of ‘damn you’ if I screwed up somehow.”
“You’ve never said anything,” she repeated, the cup of coffee now pushed to the middle of the table, the cream-added contents spilling onto his breakfast.
He decided against finishing the meal, concerned now with the possibility of poison instead of paprika and pepper on the plate. As the rivulets surrounded the abandoned toast, the tan liquid filling in the valleys of the burnt toast, the yolk of the undercooked egg now seeping from its dome, he watched as the fluids mingled, aware that Maggie’s stare hadn’t lessened.
“You don’t think I didn’t know you and he dated at one time? Sorry if you were expecting a ‘hurt husband’ or a ‘tyrant’s temper tantrum’ over an alleged lovers’ triangle, but I’m all right with that. I see how you two glance at each other. I remember reading between the lines of the letters he used to write me during that time.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “He told you? My sister doesn’t even know and-.”
“We perfected the emotional code in letter writing,” Royce said with a hint of mocked pride. “You made him happy and goodness knows he needed it; you deserved it. It isn’t worth discounting. As for your sister, do I look crazy enough to tell her? It’s their relationship; his responsibility if he dares.”
“Any other man would be livid,” she said, reaching for the mess he pulled away from her. “Any other man-.”
“Believe it or not, Maggie, you didn’t marry ‘any other man,’ because I chose to say ‘I do’ and vow my life to you forever.” He sighed, feeling a weight on his legs that rivaled the time of the accident. His hands dropping to his sides, he wheeled his chair out from under the table, setting the dishes on his lap. “I may be the occasional invalid, but I’m not insecure. I thought you might see the same level of amusement that I had. I guess I was wrong.”
Tommia's Tablet 