Creative Writing Tidbit

Just back from my weekly writing class with more content...I love writing short stories!  

I'll always be a little kid at heart.  

I would live in my imagination if I could!

***

     If we’d been sitting outside, I’d have been able to hear crickets chirping, that’s how quiet it was.  The only occasional sound came from my noodles slipping when I nervously fumbled my chop sticks, grimacing at my own spasticity.  

     My mom sat across from me, legs folded on her little tuffet, posture as straight as a pin.  

     “Good?” she asked, nodding at my bowl just as I opened my mouth for another attempt with the chop sticks.

     “Totally,” I replied a little too enthusiastically.  Feigning nonchalance, I chanced a smile in my mom’s direction and slopped more noodles in my lap.  Great.

     To avoid further chit chat, I did my best to appear seriously intrigued by my food.  At least that way it might make it to my mouth.  We were at the little Thai restaurant across from my old middle school; Dad’s favourite place.  He used to pick me up from school on Fridays and rent out the back room here.  We’d sit on our little pillows for hours, stuffing our faces and just being silly.  Dad told my mom he was supervising my school chess club, which made the whole thing even more fun.  It was our little secret for a while.  

     Back in the same restaurant, more than ten years later, - same discoloured carpet, same bamboo blinds - I struggled to make my mom feel what I feel.  How could I put it all into words when I couldn’t even get the food into my mouth?

     I cleared my throat; a push to make some sort of coherent sentence come out.  My mom looked up appraisingly.  “Did you say something, dear?”   

     I nodded but it was more of a gulp than anything else.  

     This was the thing Dad and I did.  Our thing.  It was as if she was trying to bring him back for me, without having to bring him back at all.  What a rip off.

     “Mom,” I said, pulling a plane ticket from my jacket.  The word came out as a question, but hearing it reverberate sheepishly through the stillness, I sucked it up, and jumped.

     “I’m going to live with Dad.”