Choose Your Own Adventure (Writing Challenge: Choice)
image Wallpaper Flare
Sniffing the neighbour’s bonfire, a few plumes swirling above her shed, and suddenly a mental image of your grocery list, somewhere in the depths of the purse you don’t like to admit is a purse, shouts at you “add marshmallows, add chocolate covered cookies”. You don’t want to think of your children who are now swaddled in sleeping bags on the basement floor because they insisted and you’re too exhausted to utter that simple two letter word that you’ve never managed to corral.
If you wander over, hugging the last bottle of pinot, go to A. If you choose instead to empty the dishwasher and snuggle up with a hunky hero in a smut-filled romance novel and that same last bottle of wine, go to B.
A. “Yo, Neighbour!” She shouts as you round the corner of her cracking foundation. You think to yourself, as politely as your mind will let you, that 76 1/2 year olds should never utter the word “yo” but you forgive this transgression. Hetta brings soup when she sees your car hasn’t left the driveway on a work day. Her partner cuts your lawn when you can no longer see balls and bikes in the foot depth forest. You will forgive her the occasional yodelled “yo”. Besides: it’s been a challenging day and lined up on her picnic table, lit up from behind by ‘smore-perfect embers, are a dozen or so shot glasses.
If you join her in knocking back a few shot glasses, go to C. If you park your behind on a slightly off-kilter lawnchair and open your own wine, go to D.
B. Just as you slide the last piece of cutlery from the rack, ready to re-introduce yourself to six-pack Sam, a part time plumber for charities who is recently been widowed, the slippery knife skids, digs deep into the Y between your thumb and finger, and immediately your palm, shirt sleeve, and sink mat are sprayed with blood.
If you go to the hospital for stitches, go to E. If you try to bandage it up on your own and then end up yelling at your helpful neighbour Hetta (the one having a fire) for help, go to F.
C. When was the last time you did shots? Has it really been six years since Ella’s stag where a few extra bills allowed sip-off-stripper-stomach shots? Hoping you won’t need to serve cereal in the morning wearing sunglasses you share shots and stories with Hetta’s partner, Char, who, you suddenly realize, spends an enormous amount of time pulling at her left earlobe.
If you choose to joke about this, go to G. If you choose to ask instead how her father’s battle with prostate cancer has been going, go to H.
D. You are perfectly content to observe this group of septuagenarians dance ever too closely to the fire, some in their jeans still pocked with gardening mud and lawnmower grease, others in the lacy blouses your grandmother often wore only to church. There is a freedom and joy and a…well, a drunken serenity…to it all. Knowing its your last bottle of wine, you sip slowly, deeply, enjoyably, momentarily forgetting your children, your job, the piles of bills and hampers of dirty clothing. What an evening.
E. If you were hoping for six-pack Sam’s brother, bulging Brad the Doctor (who helps with the same charity on weekends, of course), to be working Emergency, your expectations are quickly chucked into the waste bin, along with dirty dressings and syrupy syringes. Go to I.
F. Standing outside your back door you shout Hetta’s name half a dozen times. She does not hear. Leaving splotches of blood on the phone as you dial her number you pray that she will answer. She doesn’t. Feeling ready to faint, you instead dial the number of the taxi and head to the hospital. Go to E.
G. “Char,” you say, hearing a slur in your own voice. Is that even possible, you wonder, and then wonder why you are wondering it. “Why are you always pulling at your ear like that?” It isn’t a look of hurt that crosses the harsh facial features that scared you when you first moved in but a look of…you’re just contemplating what exactly the look is when a blur from the left connects with your nose. Several times. You haven’t been punched since, when? You don’t have time to think any more about Ella’s stag as you attempt a duck and manage to trip over a slightly off-kilter lawnchair. You don’t really recall what happened between those moments and ending up in the hospital emergency room, Hetta clasping your hand and endlessly whispering “I’m so sorry…so sorry…” Go to I.
H. “Char,” you say, hearing a slur in your own voice. Is that even possible, you wonder, and then wonder why you are wondering it. “How’s your Dad doing? With his prostate cancer?” It isn’t a look of hurt or sadness that crosses the harsh facial features that scared you when you first moved in but a look of…you’re just contemplating what exactly the look is when a blur from the left connects with your shoulder. Char’s embrace reminds you of those hugs you got at Disney, the ones from the seemingly ten foot high Chip and Dale characters, that left you joyous and half-smothered, gasping for breath.
If you hug back and then, after Char tearfully tells you that you are the first person, other than Hetta, to ask about her father, sit down nearby, go to D. If you feel slightly shocked by the enormity of the hug, go to J.
I. Everyone on duty has obviously learned their bedside manner watching Gordon Ramsay at work and some patient with charred fingers and earlobes parades about in only his underwear and a tiara, stopping briefly but constantly to advise you that if you do not pay your credit card bill immediately he will have to foreclose on your home. What an evening.
J. This isn’t what you expected from Char. It’s not uncomfortable and yet why do you back away, reel slightly? In your usual clumsy ways, you manage to trip over a slightly off-kilter lawnchair. You don’t really recall what happened between the moment of the chair introducing itself to your body and ending up in the hospital emergency room, Hetta clasping your hand and endlessly whispering “I’m so sorry…so sorry…” Go to I.
