One

Inspired by a writing exercise with a friend... (see end note)



"Sit."

I sat on the hard steel chair. He glared his cold glare from cold eyes. I tried to shrink in my seat.

"Why? Why won't you do this? It's a job, for pete's sake." He wiped his brow.

"I...I can't, I guess." I was at a loss for words.

"I need a drink." He poured. "You need a drink." He poured and served.

We sat and sipped. It burned, all the way down.

He sighed a deep sigh. "Do you care?"

I shrugged, but my head shook no. "Would it help?"

"No. Not now. You had your shot." I watched his big hands fret. "You blew it."

I took a swig. "Yeah right. You think that was my shot?"

He stared at me. "Of course. What did you think it was, show and tell?"

I laughed. "Don’t tell me you think that lame brain, lard ass, big mouth, half wit, two buck, red face, snot nose, desk dork is my shot." I stood, and jabbed his chest with each word. "I. Don't. Think. So."

"But he runs the place. He prints your words on his page. You get paid. What the hell more do you want?" He poured once more.

Wow. Might be he cares. But now I knew the truth, why I did what I did.

"Look. I write. If he likes it, I get paid. If he hates it, I don't. Fine. There's lots of ways to get your stuff out there. More fish in the sea, I think you said. But I will not write crap just to please his blue-nose stick-up-her-butt wife."

"She went to Yale, you know." He grinned.

"Of course I know. It's on her plates. Yale Grl. Like a girl scout badge. Sad, if that's all she's got." I took a swig.

"Well she does have a man who owns and runs this rag. And a fine pair of --"

"Oh grow up. She has a fine pair of hands that have not worked a day in her charmed life. That's what she has." I drained my drink. "One more?"

"Last call." He poured the last drop. "Well she had a name too, a name for the piece she wants you to write. You have yet to tell me what it is. Must have been bad though, the way you looked." He smirked.

"She thought it was cute, way cute I think she said." I shook my head.

"But when you turned her down, she talked to him?"

"And in two shakes of a dead lamb's tail, I was out the door."

"What now?"

"I'll write. That's what I do. They read it, or they don't. But I write."

"So what was this high-brow name she thought you had to use?"

"The name for my way cute piece was to be..."

"…The Monosyllabic Sesquipedalian"

He grinned. "Good call, dude. Don’t write that."

I put on my cap and went for the door. I turned with a nod. "Thanks, man. For the good word. And thanks for the tea."


...a writer friend who bragged about the wonders of one-syllable words when we wrote a very short story using very short words. She inspired me to try this. Go ahead, count the two syllable words.
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