Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Extremely Short Story 6

Lynette checked herself out in the mirror. The scowl made the crowsfeet even deeper, and she doesn't like to look old. Thinking of the sight of John, her feckless son-in-law, pawing that floozie at the mall, just an hour after she talked to him at the office, that made her blood boil all over again.

What was she going to tell Dan, her husband?

For the tenth time, she played the scene out in her head:

John laughs. "Your mother also said to tell you your problem wrangler is on the List."

"I hope you told her have us over for supper when his day comes."

"We're penciled in for the Fourth of July."

Revenge, after all, is a dish best served barbecued.


--Anonymous/Writtenwyrdd

8 comments:

E.D. Walker said...

I love the last line. "Revenge is a dish best served barbequed." Awesome!

Ellie said...

I love the last line, too.

I confess I didn't really understand the setup Anonymous gave, but I may just be tired.

Anonymous said...

I read and read again and I still don't get it. Great last line.

writtenwyrdd said...

If you got cannibalism, you got what the story ending was referring to. Not positive about the new beginning, though.

Ellie said...

writtenwyrdd, I didn't guess cannibalism; my impression was at first of something lighthearted, and then on a closer read, something very black-humored, a sinister situation handled with sunshine and a wink and a nudge. (But what can you tell from five lines?)

I really wanted to read the story (and still do!)

Anonymous said...

It's not the ending I don't get; it's the beginning.

Evil Editor said...

I don't get either one.

writtenwyrdd said...

5 sentences isn't enough to extrapolate a whole story, which is what makes this a really fun exercise.