[For some background on these stories, please see this post [link] over at my blog.]
Prompt: Write a short story about writing a short story. (Word count: 259)
* * * * *
B.F. Thomas drummed his keyboard.kljdff ljsdio skxc
“Good as anything I’ve written today,” he said to nobody.
“Excuse me,” Deirdre, his muse, said, offended at being called nobody. “At 11:34 you wrote: ‘Jeffries returned from the cupboard with anchovies for the cat and self-loathing for himself.’ Much better than ‘kljdff ljsdio skxc’ … ow, my throat.”
Thomas ignored her. It had been good, even halfway his, but that was hours ago. “I need a break,” he announced, rising from his chair.
Deirdre pushed him back. “You’re fighting the story. And me. Purge your self-loathing on the page.”
“I don’t loathe myself. I’m disappointed I lack success.”
“That’s not it.” Deirdre filled a glass with absinthe from a flask she kept concealed in her gown.
“You won’t lower my resolve, drinking that.”
She downed it in a shot. “Won’t I?”
“I loathe you.”
“Halfway there.” Deirdre sipped green nectar directly from the flask.
“I loathe I need you. Ste— You-know-who doesn’t need a muse. What’s-her-face, neither.”
“Sure?” She sipped again, floated onto the chaise longue. “I could tell you stories…”
“Really?”
“You-know-who’s on his sixth. We can’t stand him. What’s-her-face plies hers with butterscotch pudding, otherwise she’d never write again.”
Thomas thought a moment, cracked his fingers.Jeffries nudged the cat, slid an anchovy down his throat. Not bad. He helped himself to the rest, left the self-loathing to the cat who was better equipped to deal with existential disappointment anyway.
–30–