Winter Victory Dance - Sudden Fiction

Ciao, Tutti!

What? Sam goldsmith has time to write in the middle of his crazy finals schedule? Well, here's all I have to say about that:

Egyptian History: Check! Big fat check! And with 23 hours to spare, too. Now I don't have to spend all day reading hundreds of pages of boring excavation accounts and compiling them into a semi-coherent argument! I almost shudder to start reading for pleasure again, worrying that I might start instinctively skimming for the important stuff.

Well, now I get to relax a bit before hitting the airplane and heading home. And while I'm relaxing I figured I'd do my winter victory dance. Naked and outside.

Hold on a moment.

Wow. It's cold out there.

Anyway, I'll finally be able to write my novel again, record into garage band, write music, read for fun, and write short stories again! No more having to put off thinking about all the wonderful things I'd rather be doing than hi-lighting a photocopied piece on some papyrus that really doesn't amount to anything more than an icicle in hell.

So, since I'm so happy, I'd like to share some sudden fiction with you. These are all stories that are less than 250 words long, since that's about all I had time to write during my 5 minutes of study-breaking each day. That's an exaggeration. I usually got to take two study breaks per day.

I hope you enjoy!

Where to Find the Other Stories

The other stories are in the archives somewhere along the left-hand side of my blog, intermingled with the pictures I took in Europe and shameless self-promotion.

"Sam Fails to Finish a Love Story" is under the post entitled "Sam Fails to Finish a Love Story" (duh) in the month of November.

"The VideoMag Proposal" is under the post entitled "The Day Before November" in October. It's a long post and the story is near the bottom.

"Cliche Central" is under the post entitled "Art Sharing Day" in October.

My brother's sudden fiction, "On The Way To Work," is under the post entitled "On The Way To Work - My Brother, The Storyteller" in November.

Enjoy!

Step Down

A native Spanish speaking man makes me and hundreds of other students lunch every day in a glass building on Washington Square Park. He is not thrilled about this. He gets irritated if the people in the line don’t step down fast enough once a person receives his order. He let’s us know about his irritation. And it makes sense. He has a long day filled with long lines.

This doesn’t stop him from making a good stir-fry. That’s why I eat there every day. And I always order the same thing. So he knows me, and I wish I could make him less irritated somehow, other than stepping down fast enough.

“Chicken and broccoli, please,” I say firmly so he can hear me easily over the sizzling of the frying pans. He already knows what I want, the tongs already moving towards the chicken, but I like saying please. His expression tells me he doesn’t hear that word enough.

“Sauce?” he asks.

“Sweet and sour, please.”

“Rice? Noodles? Noodles, right?”

I nod and smile. “Yeah, noodles, please.” Sometimes I’ll joke around. “How did you know?”

He puts the food in a box and hands it to me. It smells sweet and sour and it warms my hand.

“Thank you,” I shout over the sounds of the kitchen.

“All right, man. Have a good one.” As I leave the line he turns to the people behind me. “Step down, folks, step down!” he shouts, irritated.

I make my way to the checkout line, regretting that I couldn’t be thankful enough.

The Little Things

I spent almost half a year studying in Italy. It was nice.

In the grocery stores there you have to weight your own fruit. There are machines for this. You place your fruit on the scale, push the according picture, and it prints a price tag for you to stick on the bag.

Everyone’s lives are easier now.

When I came back to the United States I went searching for the fruit scale in my local grocery store. I asked the cashier where I could find it.

She weighed the fruit for me. I felt dejected.

Live With It

They fell in love at first sight. Which sucked dearly.

The man was addicted to underage Asian virgins, and true love was not going to keep him away from the meat he could not resist.

The woman was an overemotional control freak who grew up being scolded by a catholic priest for impure thoughts she hadn’t realized she was thinking.

It didn’t mix. But, oh well. It was love at first sight. What can you do but live with it?

Haiku Man

A skinny black man handed me a slip of paper. I was wearing headphones. People usually don’t hand me fliers while I’m wearing headphones. I thanked him and put it in my pocket.

“No, it’s a haiku,” the man said. He had a bit of a beard. Maybe he could tell I was an artist, too. “I’m trying to make a couple bucks. Read it.”

I read it. It was about balloons or something and it didn’t follow the proper beat scheme. Even so, the imagery was vivid, and the poem was almost memorable. I handed him back the slip.

“I like it,” I said. “It’s very bucolic.”

He didn’t take it. “Hey, man, I’m trying to make a couple bucks here,” he repeated. I realized he wanted to make a couple of bucks from me. I had more than a couple of bucks. I only had a twenty-dollar bill.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have any cash,” I forced, a phrase I usually reserve for Greenpeace, not street artists. I felt bad. I would have liked to give him a couple bucks. I owed it. “But thanks for sharing it with me,” I said with a smile and all the sincerity I could muster.

The man reluctantly took back the card and strode off and I wondered if I had been grateful enough.

Fine

There's another, but I doubt it's appropriate to post online. You know me and my dirty mind...

I haven't had a chance to look at these again yet, but I will. Oh, I will. And then you know what will happen? Editing time!!!!! Woooo, hoooo!!!

Okay, finals season drove me insane. I'll be going now....

Home!!

-Sam goldsmith