Short short story thread

[Whitacre D_WI]

Here's a place for all you Lounge writers to post your short short stories (5 paragraphs or shorter).

This is NOT a thread for your vanity posts, it's not a thread for saying "ooh, that's really good" or "that really sucks." It's just a thread in which to post stories for our reading pleasure.

So here goes:


He stared at the box. His lips were wet with Old Crow. It had arrived in the midafternoon mails and he had signed (hesitantly) and the door had opened and the door had closed and now there it sat, surrounded by ashtrays and soils and the dead bonsai he'd been gifted by his mother two years ago. The return was from somewhere in Washington. He went inside for another drink.

He stared at the box. There was something disquieting in the lateafternoon sun as it trickled through the warped old glass. Spectres made spectra leaped from the tape. An ember fell from a cigarette and he deignfully brushed it into ash and went for the watering-can to douse any potential disasters. The water flowed mellifluously from the florid spout, out onto the indoor/outdoor carpet, drawing the ghosts ever nearer and he exhaled a condemnation.

He stared at the box. The prophet-dreams of the Shawnee stirred within. He stared at the box. The quiet rumblings of hunger awoke in him. He stared at the box. The box stared back. He beat it with the hittin' stick until it had stopped screaming.