Day #2 – Dangerous Work

Think About It, , ,

“So why… dragons?” he asks.

It’s a question I’m frequently asked. And I get it. “I guess I thought it would be exciting.”

“And is it?” He smiles, revealing a row of yellowing teeth. “Exciting, I mean?”

“I knew what you meant,” I say, looking over his x-rays from six months before. “It hasn’t been boring. Let’s just say that.”

“I imagine it hasn’t,” he smiles again. It would be easy to mistaken it as a lecherous smile if he were human. But it is not. It is a little sinister though. Over the years, I’ve learned to interpret their expressions. Mistakes were made along the way. It would have been helpful had someone authored a guidebook for humans on the matter before the whole blood and fire incident. Live and learn, I suppose.

I set out my tray of oversized tools and rub a blurry smudge from one of the handles so that it’s gleaming. I look back into his mouth. This guy has not been good to his teeth. Given the advanced state of his plaque that were likely caused by lack of flossing after consuming any myriad of life forms, I’m thinking he would fare well with a power washer. Or a sledge hammer. But insurance doesn’t usually cover that. “To answer your question more honestly, I find humans dull,” I say, carefully centering the curette and scaler because to do so eases my OCD.

“You find their mouths dull?” he asks.

“What comes out of them, largely,” I say, to which he lets out a roaring laugh. “I take it you agree?” I add, blowing out the tiny flame on my sleeve caused by his laughter.

“I honestly spend very little time with humans. Or at least, speaking with them,” he says, and his tail does a little shudder which I’ve come to understand (again, no thanks to any guidebook) means he is nervous. Or that he has to urinate. I’m hoping it’s the former. The latter never goes well. Though a nervous dragon is not without its problems. Which would have been nice to know before the jittery claw incident.

“So why… me?” I ask him. It’s a valid question.

“I’ve heard you’re the best,” he says. “My sister was here last month and said you were,” he pauses, “magical. In as much as a human is capable of magic, of course.”

“Of course,” I say. And I know exactly which dragon is his sister. Their mouths are nearly identical, right down to the yellowing teeth. So are their eyes with that lustrous shade of murderous red. Genetics work the same way with dragons as they do with us. That’s where the similarities end though. “I appreciate the compliment,” I smile at him. “So whadya say I start some of that magic on you?”

“Have at it,” he says, opening his mouth wide and exhaling. I quickly pull my mask up over my nose to guard myself from the hot rush of foul air. His sharp teeth glimmer like yellow topaz under the dental lamp and I can see I have my work cut out for me. This will easily be a two-hour job. But I don’t mind. It’s for the greater good. The world needs dragons. Since their introduction last century, they have proven to be our greatest protectors. Especially against ourselves.

PROMPT: You are a dental hygienist for dragons.

Day #1 – The Lifeguard

Short Writings from Silly Prompts,

Chaz was hot. He wasn’t 2026 hot, though. His was more that sort of 1956 beach movie hot with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan sensibility favored during that era. He was buff and tan and wore the oddly fitting men’s short bathing suit trunks that were all straight lines as though his nether region had been redacted by a beige swatch of fabric. The redaction, as it were, did contain one oddly placed pocket that was also starkly rectangular. In that pocket, he kept a gold, heart-shaped locket and didn’t care one iota that this was cliché. The locket didn’t contain a picture of an old flame (in keeping with 1950s vernacular). And there was no secretly stored image of a clandestine boyfriend. No, in a weirdly Freudian twist, it was a picture of his mother nestled neatly into its chamber.

His mother had always been his greatest inspiration. She was an Olympic swimmer. She hadn’t technically ever competed in the Olympics, but she swam in an Olympic-sized pool at their community center. To Chaz, this qualified her as an Olympic swimmer. When he was quite young, he would go with her and watch in awe as she either chopped through the water with total abandon, or swam swiftly and gracefully, like an aqueous gazelle. His mother would invite young Chaz to jump in and join her. She would stand near the edge of the pool and hold out her arms, promising to catch him if he jumped. He waved her away, though, preferring to watch her. He always claimed it was because he didn’t wish to break that reverie.

So the years passed.

Then one day, his mother went into the ocean and disappeared. Just like that. Gone. It was then that Chaz knew he must do the unthinkable. He must become a lifeguard. So he used his dashing good looks and physique to charm his way into a job at a beach resort. As luck would have it, the two people in charge of hiring were shallow and empty-headed, which worked to Chaz’s advantage because he had no formal training to be a lifeguard. He couldn’t even swim. But he believed that if he stayed long enough in one spot on one beach, his mother would someday emerge from the water like a phoenix rising. Except without the fire and all that other pomp. And so he kept watch, his hand always placed gently on that pocket, knowing there was no danger that he would ever lose that locket to the sea as he had his mother. He was far too afraid of water to ever go near it.

PROMPT: Write about a lifeguard at a beach resort who’s afraid of water.

Thrift Store Find

Think About It, , , , , ,

Any way you cut it, the vase was a true find.

Not that Katie was looking for a vase. She’d entered the thrift store on a mission to find a replacement carafe for their old coffeemaker, George. They didn’t make ’em like George anymore. Of course, she knew there were much better coffee pots on the market. Those that could be set to run themselves, to grind the beans, to maybe change your socks, if so inclined. But she loved George. His simplicity. His rustic charm. His smile. Yes. She believed that George smiled at her every morning. No. She knew it.

“Let’s see your fancy coffeemakers do that,” Katie said to her boyfriend each time George smiled. Her boyfriend rolled his eyes. She knew that he longed to banish George to a landfill. This was not a quality she liked in her boyfriend. Along with his overuse of the word ‘dude.’ There was a time and place.

She was having no luck finding a new carafe for George. Although she knew she would eventually, Katie was left momentarily bereft at this admission of failure. Thus, the vase.

It was ‘tall glass of water’ of a vase. Long and slender with smooth, beguiling shoulders. Even if you weren’t into shoulders, you couldn’t deny that this vase had a winning pair. Katie ran her fingers along the right shoulder and felt she may be bordering on violating it. Which was a weird thought. Even for her. She stared at it awhile, pulled in by its cerulean glaze that sent her adrift on an imaginary sea. She blinked a few times and then noticed there were patches of imperfections in spotted browns and greens that brought to mind algae growth. She touched it again.

“George would love you,” she said, if more to convince herself that she would need to bring it home. That way, if her boyfriend questioned her, she could throw George under the bus. She wasn’t above doing such a thing. Chances are, the dude wouldn’t even notice the vase. He wasn’t much of a noticer.

And so she purchased the vase and promptly named it Louise. Louise was only $11. A steal. Especially given Louise’s pedigree.

Louise had travelled only a short way before landing on this Goodwill shelf in East Texas. Her former gig was at the Parkerson Funeral Home, just six miles up the highway. There she had dutifully held a variety of flowers; mostly white lilies, blue hydrangea, and yellow roses. All flowers associated with death; though the yellow rose is also a Texas thing. Whatever the case, the journey to the funeral home had also not been a long one. The funeral home had actually been gifted Louise by an eccentric woman twenty years before who’d insisted that the funeral home was too drab and needed a spot of color. Unclear on the vibe most funeral homes were trying to achieve, she also suggested kerchiefs in every hue be draped over the lamps. The owners felt this gave it a boudoir feel that was wholly inappropriate for a funeral home. So she relented.

Now, how the eccentric woman came to acquire Louise is not entirely known. Sometimes objects travel on haphazard trajectories that defy reason or logic. The eccentric woman defied these as well. So perhaps it was kismet that brought them together. More than likely though, an older relative of the eccentric woman had had Louise in his/her possession before handing it off to her. One thing was known for certain. Louise was born in a small French town in the 1920s at the hands of a young ceramicist. And one of some repute, though no one at the Crockett Goodwill was familiar with her name. Thus, by the time Louise landed on that shelf and drew Katie’s attention, nobody knew of her true monetary value.

Nobody also knew that she’d been purchased by royalty at one point and held poppies and peonies in a palace. Or that she’d found her way to Poland in the hands of a trader, where she adorned the shelf of a small kitchen that smelled of boiled potatoes and sauerkraut and where the flowers she held softened the earthy, dirty foot scent of the cabbage. And certainly no one knew she had been smuggled out of Poland in the late 1930s with the family that fled to the United States.. just in time. Or that she would then settle in Teaneck, New Jersey, until a series of meandering events would land her in the eccentric woman’s home just outside Crockett in East Texas and then the Parkerson Funeral Home. Thus, when the eldest Parkerson passed, and none of the younger Parkersons wanted the too-morose family business, Louise ended up on a shelf at the Goodwill.

But Katie knew nothing of this. Nor did she care. The value of the Louise was apparent to her in her smooth lines, her soothing color, and just how delightful a sister she would be to George.