Short Story

One of the fun things about being in a writing class is - I'm writing more! LOL. We are supposed to write for timed period based off an object word that is revealed when the timer starts. Doing it in the morning "wakes up the writer for the day" and gets ideas flowing. (it's really true, and awesome, rather than thinking in Tweets and Facebook status updates, I'm thinking in stories, descriptions, verbs and lyrics!) Later on we are encouraged to pull images from the object writing into our lyrics. This morning I had 10 minutes to write about "Ice Cube" and this is what came out.

The ice cubes crackled and sang when they hit the water in the tall ocean-blue glass, and gently clinked on the way back to the table. The dewy sides quickly left a wet ring on the paper tablecloth. With a muttered thank you to the waiter she picked up the glass and pressed it to her sweating forehead. She didn't care when the water sloshed over the sides when she rolled the glass to the back of her neck. Who's idea of paradise was it where every day you had to fight against melting into a puddle on the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West?

They were all treating her like the Witch. They cowered and clammed up when she stalked out of the bedroom in the mornings. She didn't mean to get so snippy, but she had never done well in the heat, surely they knew that? It was probably better this way, that they leave her alone till a few days after the long plane ride home, and she'd had a chance to cool off, literally and figuratively.

A bead of sweat slid its way down her forehead and spiraled down an auburn curl into her eye. She smeared the unruly bangs away with the back of her hand. That was another thing she hated about the heat and humidity, the way her hair sprang out from her head in every direction. It didn't matter how long she spent yanking it through the straightener or how much goop she dumped on it, five minutes outside and the curls popped up like mushrooms. She had given up after the second day, no point in purposefully bringing more heat close to her head when it wasn't even working.

She glanced out across the beach, they were laughing and splashing through the shallow surf, running towards the bigger waves with boogie boards held high above their heads. Tan skin glistened up through the salt-water spray.

She turned her arm to examine the new batch of freckles that seemed to have cropped up in her walk from the car to the cafe. Another reason to stay here in the shade. Her only two options in the sun were burn or freckle. Jason teased her sometimes, that if she got enough new freckles maybe they would finally blend together into one big freckle of a tan. She only scowled at him, refusing to admit that she had secretly wondered the same thing as a child. Dammed Irish skin.

She stuck her finger in the glass and slid an ice cube up the side to pop into her mouth. A second one followed to trace a cooling path over her face, neck, collarbones, knees. She didn't care who was watching, and pushed out out of her mind the horrified look that surely would be on her mother's face had she fished ice cubes out of her drink at a restaurant back in Manhattan. She rebelliously cracked the ice cube in her mouth with her teeth. She was on vacation after all. Where you were supposed to relax and let loose. She paid for this and if all the joy she could get out of it was cracking an ice cube with her teeth her mother could suck it!