Writing Club
Time: 20 minutes
Prompt: "Despite a few fatalities everyone agreed that Mindy's first cookout was a success."
So they say when writing, go outside your comfort zone, push boundaries.
Well, the first thing I thought of when the prompt was read was canibalism. How else can a fatality at a cookout be positive? On a more subtle direction, I guess it's a "fatality" if you drop a nice cut of steak in the dirt. No 5 second rule when you're outside. But hey, I didn't think of that in the moment. So this one headed off on a macabre bent. I didn't use the prompt line in the story, instead I let it be a perspective. I am hesitant to post it because it produced one ugly word baby. Sometimes, though you can't take yourself too seriously. When you've got 20 minutes to produce a story, you don't have time to ponder. And hey, you definitely don't have to like Mindy.
“Are you remembering to turn it every 15 minutes?” Craig was making himself a nuisance.
Mindy thought the roast smelt just fine. She imagined her nosy neighbour roasting on a spit, complete with pineapple in his mouth -that would shut him up. Instead, she gave a fake smile, one showing her teeth. “Of course, I read the manual. I was the one who assembled the pig roaster after all. I’m surprised they’d ship it this far south.”
Mindy stared at Craig’s fleshy physique.
“You know, nowadays drones deliver everything ordered on Amazon.” Craig interjected. “Even to the Amazons.”
Actually, the delivery had come via cute UPS pilot. Mindy could just eat him up. She offered him a stake, but he quickly declined. Many more deliveries to make and the like, but Mindy had insisted.
Flipping a blond pigtail braid off her shoulder and turning her back to Craig, Mindy gave the handle on the spit a heave. The conversation was over, Craig, take the hint. She didn’t want to listen to his nasally voice the rest of her life, ugh!
But Craig droned on, “Did you use the sauce so it doesn’t try out?”
“Yes, like I said, I did. Everything should be a go for sunset.” She swatted a mosquito buzzing around her ear. “Darn blood suckers, can’t have them contaminating the meat.” Mindy lit a citronella candle.
Craig wandered away for all of 5 minutes to fiddle with the knives at the table, “I think I smell something burning.”
Mindy snapped, “I don’t need help!” She swung a barbeque flipper and nailed Craig in the face.
Craig startled, tripped over the rocks around the old fire pit the clan used for cooking, bashing his idiot skull good. He was out cold in the ashes.
More roast for her, Mindy smiled. “Oh, well, I guess we can make it two for dinner.”
That would really impress the elders and earn her a good husband for the choosing. She didn’t want to marry Craig anyways. Mbuntu was more her style.
The dinner ceremony would start in a few hours. She better get the extra roast onto the rack so she could really prove she could bring home the bacon.
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