Okay, so I wrote another 492, getting us to 4,325 total. Hope you're having fun with the story. I am. I found myself unable to stop writing today, even though I had more important and pressing things to do. That's a neat and unusual experience for me. This writing thing might work out after all.
Here we go:
Here we go:
He stood outside the restaurant in the storm. He let the rain pour down on him, even turning his face to the sky to allow it to pound him down further. It was really coming down, and it only took five minutes for his clothes to be completely soaked through. He hung his head back down, put it in his hands, and sobbed.
Then he heard a clicking sound from his right. He looked over, and saw a Round Table employee taking a smoke break. There was another click as the man flicked his lighter, and tried to get his cigarette lit in the wet, windy storm.
“Hell of a night, huh?” he said.
“Hey, don’t I know you?” Brody said, raising a finger to point at the man.
“Huh?” he said, “I don’t think so.”
“No, I do. You’re the guy who told me not to play the claw machine, because it would only make me unhappy.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar, man. I think you must be confusing me with someone else,” said the man.
“Well, it was a while ago, so I’m not surprised you don’t remember. But still, it was pretty weird. Why would you tell me a claw machine game would make me unhappy?”
“Wasn’t me, buddy,” the man said, “so I can’t tell you.”
“Well, you were wrong anyway,” Brody said, “I wasn’t unhappy. I won the fucking lottery because of that machine. It gave me a fucking winning lottery ticket, so you couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“Okay, buddy, whatever you say,” he said, “but all I can say is that you don’t look so happy right now to me.”
“I’m--” Brody stopped, the man was right. He wasn’t happy. He may have been happy up until that day he took Tena out to Mulvaney’s and discovered he was out of money, but he wasn’t happy anymore. Those people who said money didn’t buy happiness were so wrong. He’d never been more happy than when he had money, and now that it was gone, he was miserable. “I just need a quarter,” he finally said.
“What?” the Round Table employee asked.
“I just need a quarter is all.”
“You’re out here crying like a man whose only child just got run over by a truck and died, and it’s because you need a quarter?”
Brody shrugged, “Yeah.”
“If I give you one, will you go away, and let me have my smoke break in peace?”
“Sure,” Brody said, his voice sounding hopeful for the first time.
The man dug in his pocket. “Here, buddy, take this and get out of here, all right?”
Brody caught the quarter out of the air. “Thanks, man,” he told the Round Table employee, and turned and walked back inside. Brody didn’t see the look on the man’s face as he raised the cigarette to his lips to take another drag, but if he had, he might have reconsidered using the quarter.
2 comments:
Back to reading again, sorry for the delay, RL...
You have developed a talent for knowing where to end for the day. Like a mini cliffhanger at the end of each writing session.
So, what happened to Brody's pals that were named after the second Robin? Did the lottery winnings make them miserable too? Did they invest their half of the money wisely? Did they stop hanging out with Brody because the money made him into a big (anklevich) tool?
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