He'd sat patiently on the threshold of the kitchen all afternoon. She'd dropped countless morsels of crust, of walnuts, chunks of apple and even some of her own snacks, the clumsy klutz. Yet he'd abstained, withheld, conquered himself.
Now she was taunting him -- he felt it deep in his soul. She'd left the pies to cool -- small round pies, aromatic sweet pies -- at eye level. His eyes. She'd gone from the house (where? did it matter?) and left him to conquer himself.
Taunting his resolve. He thought to his mother who'd trained him in her ascetic ways....
Decked out in a tight green speedo, Charles swung open his screen door, strutted down the three concrete stairs into his dilapidated back yard and was instantly wet.
The rain occupied every inch of sky. Somewhere there must be sun, but not in Indiana. Charles watched the clouds slumber in their beds, unmoving. Now was noon though, and soon would be two PM. These were prime tanning hours, and how, how, did Charles need a tan.
Hosts of elder-cruises were always tan, and this being his first elder-cruise, he was going to be a tan host. As an elder himself...
The shipwreck was catastrophic -- the kind where the powder magazines fireballed into the sky. Wood and masts and sails and all that turned into a bunch of toothpicks even Dennis Hoffman couldn't count.
Only Dark James Jameson survived, catapulted as he was from the plank he'd been stumping down as he crossed himself and wished the darling world goodbye. He landed in the evian blue water with a sploosh, swam about in a silent camera shot and bobbed to the surface for a breath -- upside down. His leg was the only bouyant bit about him.
He hung upside...