Drabble Rousers

He caught himself staring at the roundness of her behind in its mustard yellow skirt, the fullness interrupted only by the ties that hung from her apron. She turned, a steaming cup of coffee on a saucer in her hand. He diverted his gaze and shook his head, embarrassed, even though he didn’t think she’d seen him seeing her.

A voice behind him asked for the check. He realized it was probably time for him to head home, too. They’d all been waiting for him, probably starting to worry as they always did. He turned and motioned for the bill.

_____

Jasmine Moy 
jasminemoy.com
@jasminemoy

She makes lists in her head:

Things to clean, things to eat, things to do next year. 

A murmuration of hopes, numbers, regrets and questions take the opportunity to tumble around her brain unchecked by distraction as she races the dark home. 

The sidewalk, the paper crackle of leaves underfoot don’t register. Her feet know the way. Her mind is free to wander. 

She turns up her music. Checks a text. 

She doesn’t sense the car, see the gun, hear the demand. 

She smiles at her phone. 

Then jumps as the tires squeal beside her, carrying frustrated kidnappers into the night. 

_____

Sarah
metamorphocity.com
@metamorphocity 

“You have a problem with object permanence,” he said. “If someone shares something with you - a song, a band, whatever - it’s like it is forever bonded to who shared it with you.”

She sipped her coffee slowly. “And you think that’s a problem?”

“It is a problem. You need to live in the present.”

Months later, after he’d moved, she called him. “Your house will always be your house to me. Other people live there now, but for me, it will never not be your house. Object permanence is only a problem when it hurts.”

_____

Stacey Joy
staceyjoy.tumblr.com
@curvesandnerves 

“Humph,” she thought.

Then: “Is humph really a word?”

She typed it, and it appeared, as commanded, on her computer screen.

“Yep, it’s a word,” she said aloud. No red squiggly line scarred her black and white canvas.

Backspace. Backspace. Backspace. Backspace. Backspace.

She started fresh.

She wanted to express her frustrations, her hatred toward the world. Her disappointment with life. She wanted everyone to know they hadn’t measured up to her expectations.

She began writing feverishly. For 10 minutes, she wrote.

She paused. She read her last typed line.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re disappointed in yourself.”

Delete.

_____

Teresa Elias
@slcitygirl 

We were on the same pavement, walking toward each other, when I noticed them. She was tiny in her white parka and furry boots. He was tall and sturdy. They held hands at the bakery. I scratched my nose.  She put her hand in his inside pocket. He laughed. I tucked my fingers into my scarf. At the crossroad, he put his arm around her shoulder and spoke into her ear. She held on tighter.  Probably sweet fuckin’ nothings, I thought.  As we passed each other, our shoulders almost touching, I heard her words,  “Actually,” she said, “I prefer cod.” 

_____

Eleni Zoe
elenizoe.com 
@elenizoe 

Go back to that room (6234, was it?) where you lost your keys, but not just your keys, friend.  If only you could now.  Think of the possibilities.  But your mind was this heap, (insurmountable, I imagine) of shit and how cold you were, and how could you think of these lines as possibilities.  Blurred like your words: Tell me what you need.  No, not this room, love.  Not this view.  Not you.

_____

Letisia
lesinfin.blogspot.com
@lesinfin 

You and I flicker in and out of each other, our minds at peace at the same time only when the light bends the right way or the wind nudges our heads out of their mired thoughts. 

Sometimes in the midst of our insanities, our spin cycles, our barrel rolls, we catch each other by the fingertips and fall into the safety net we each have built in the other’s arms. 

This is not our time, yet we make it ours. We hammer and wedge until the pieces fit because there is no other way.

_____

Laura Horton
laurapiercehorton.blogspot.com
@laurapierce26 

Want know what I think? I’d said

Of course he’d be alright. But what nobody talks about is how awful it is to have sex with somebody that isn’t your ex. Doing it for the first time with somebody new; it’s all wrong. The angles. Positions. Your insides scream, THIS ISN’T THE LOVER I ORDERD.

He told me that was disarmingly honest. I told him I lived around the corner.

He was circumcised.

He took my number when he left twenty minutes later but he never called.

And that, love, is how I met your father.

_____

Laura Jane Williams
laurajanewilliams.com 
@spiritfumble 

Sixteen purple pens sit in an appropriately retro coffee mug on her middle management corporate desk. The office is small; her hair is brown, straight, and neat. Black framed glasses accent her dark hazel eyes, and her smile always brightens the room. They all think she’s cute, but no one dares to say a word that might be misconstrued in this politically correct world of ours. Head of Human Resources in her district; a strange twist of fate. Stylish, yet quite subtle, no one has ever guessed that beneath her ruthless shell, she’s always dreamed of being a romance novelist.

_____

Sean Brown
The Anarchist Project
@SeanMcBrown 

Sunrise is the best truth serum. 
 
He jotted that down once, in a shabby notebook that had been gifted, re-gifted, discarded and rescued.  
 
“I like you,” he says.

“Don’t blame you,” she yawns.

“I’m going to be your boyfriend.”

“What if I have other plans?”

“I wouldn’t want to slow down your progress towards polycattery,” he says, full smirk.

“You’re going to be my boyfriend.”

He pulls out the shabby notebook, and a garishly-coloured pen from a motel he’s never been to, and begins scribbling.

The right girl, like a pair of jeans, fits even better on the second day.

_____

Peter DeWolf
peterdewolf.com
@peterdewolf