Saturday, January 1, 2011

Fragment of Untitled Prose

The bitter smell of coffee and the dry taste of slightly burnt toast: these things make up a perfectly mundane and monotonous beginning to a perfectly mundane and monotonous day. The coffee was too hot, had too little cream, and was probably sitting in its pot for a few hours before it had been hastily reheated and served. Next to it sat toast covered lazily in a spread of strawberry jam fresh from a tiny sealed packet on the counter. It tasted just like every other piece of toast consumed on every other day. It was chewed listlessly and swallowed, followed by only a few sips of coffee, leaving a third of the cup and a couple dollars on the counter for a tip.

This light breakfast was only the first stop in this assiduous schedule. The next would be the post office to mail a collection of bills, and then a walk several blocks in length to spend a couple dark hours cleaning the dusty crevices of an elevator shaft. Afterward would be a journey to the florist to pick up one dozen gerbera daisies to deliver to mother, who was in the hospital once again. Mother was an especially chatty person and did not enjoy the solitude of her hospital room day-in and day-out; she would probably initiate a long conversation of bed pains and snotty nurses and utter quite a few discontented sighs. After this visit, the final stop would be home—more specifically, the shower, and then the bedroom—and then the same process would begin the next day, breaking the cycle only on Sunday—a day originally set aside for the public and solemn worship of God, though now is a day for the average person to take a break from their contemporary worship of things-they-don’t-need and spend time with their family doing things they saw other families do on tv.


I just discovered this piece of writing I started long ago; unfortunately, I can't remember what the story was going to be about. Perhaps I could take suggestions from your comments?

-ec.wolf