Friday Flash Fiction 33
Filed under Flash Fiction • Friday Flash Fiction • 28-03-2008 •
No tags for this post.GOD’S GIFT
By Gareth L PowellJack’s upstairs neighbour really was the world’s greatest lover.
In the evenings, Jack had to turn his TV up to hide the bumps and giggles from above. One time, a lump of plaster fell off the ceiling and smashed his glass coffee table.
In the mornings, there would usually be two or three ashen-faced women in the communal stairwell. Some were lost, some shell shocked or euphoric. Some were reassessing their lives and relationships in the light of the previous night’s events. Jack would take them in and make them coffee, call them cabs or get them cigarettes, that sort of thing.
He liked the company. He liked being useful. And sometimes, one of the girls would stay a few days.
They used him to wind down, to ground themselves. Sometimes, they just needed to talk. And when they left, as they inevitably did, it made him sad.
He would rinse out the empty coffee mugs, clean the ashtrays, and then fetch himself a beer from the fridge. Then he would settle himself on the sofa again, rest his feet on the coffee table frame, and turn the TV volume wa-ay up.
I like this as much as I did at Orbital – very funny, very human.
All of my sympathies are with Jack. If his upstairs neighbor is getting “all the women” there must be somewhere “one” woman for Jack. You’ve produced another fine handful of words that tell a “complete” story. His neighbor uses. Jack nurtures.
Thanks folks. I wrote this one in around fifteen minutes during the FFF workshop at Eastercon… and I’m kind of pleased with the way it turned out.
Read this at the end of slog that is always Monday morning. Made me laugh out loud!