Thursday, May 21, 2009

Death

Here's a story for Three Word Wednesday. The words are efficient, optimize, treacherous.


He called her Death because that’s all she talked about.

So when Death cooked him eggs for breakfast she always served up a side of murder and mayhem along with them. Lately she’d been on a disease kick.

“There are cancer cells floating around in your body right now,” Death would say, biting into an underdone slice of bacon. “All they need is an excuse.”

She’d discuss the fragility of life with the efficiency and relish of an assassin while she cleared the dishes. A plane crash would bouy her for days. She optimized even the near misses. “The water filled in to their necks,” she’d said. “Their necks!”

Once he caught Death intently examining a small wrinkle around her mouth, as if trying to extract an expiration date from its appearance. After that she went to bed and stayed there for days.

He brought Death dinner but she wouldn’t touch it, mumbling something about treacherous conglomerates loading the food supply with GMOs. Flowers depressed her. So all he could do was turn on CNN and let Death absorb the coverage of one war or another until she felt ready to face the world again.

7 comments:

Voices of NLD said...

That was wonderful. Truly felt it. Very original

I had to copy your blog url and paste it in order to reach your blog--might want to link the blog so people can read this as it so deserves to be

http://courtingdestiny.com

Thom Gabrukiewicz said...

Just brilliant. Original and just so well done.

How's the MFA going? Closing in on it?

Oh, it you just post the blogger URL in comments, Wordpress should make it into a link. I'm going to try it for you, since everyone needs to read this.

gautami tripathy said...

Simply wonderful. I like the irony in it.

I am currently reading Death's Daughter by Amber Benson.

3WW: no pawns spared

Anonymous said...

This is sooo someone I know! Great, original style. I loved it. Thanks to ThomG for posting the link on 3WW.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

This is great--so short and clever! I love it that Death cooks eggs for breakfast and worries about her own mortality. Very well done!

Purple Houses said...

Thanks, everyone, for reading and for your very kind comments. And thanks for posting the link, Thom -- I'll try it next time.

One more semester to go (probably) if I survive the end of this one...

Anonymous said...

so very well written. I enjoyed this so much! -Meg