In the interest of putting myself out on a limb
(something I'm not generally a fan of doing when it comes to my
"creative" writing) I have decided to post a piece of writing I did
in class sometime during the past couple of months. It is
most definitely fiction. I have never been to Chicago.
I
call it "No Ketchup." Don't ask me why.
No Ketchup
“Mustard, sir?”
“Yes, mustard and onions. No ketchup.”
Dave picked up the Diet Coke that Sam handed him.
“Here you go sir, mustard, onions, and ketchup.”
“No ketchup. Absolutely no ketchup,” said Dave. It bothered
Dave that Sam couldn’t remember how he liked his hotdog. He had been coming to
the same cart for 5 years now, ever since Sam had rolled up in his denim
baseball cap and undersized ‘Harvard’ sweatshirt. It was little thing that
bothered him, really. Like how Sam had never gone to Harvard.
Dave cracked open his Coke can and winced. A tiny sliver of
blood rose up to the surface of his thumb. He sucked on it.
Damn, he thought. He had a stack of
proposals to sign.
He stood in front of the elevator, watching his reflection in
the mirrored surface as he waited for it to hit the ground
floor. Someone had scratched a smiley face into the stainless steel.
“Probably some frigging kid-intern,” said Dave’s boss, beside
him.
“Yeah,” Dave said. He smiled. It had been an intern. Dave
knew this because he given the kid the paperclip after a late night at his
desk. He smiled again.
It was a week after the smiley face night that his mother,
Margery, had been readmitted to the hospital. The cancer had spread to a new
part of her body. The surgeons, unwilling to operate on her, had told Dave and
his father that Margery would have to remain in the hospital for observation.
At the time, Dave struggled to withhold a snarky comment.
When the elevator doors finally binged open, Dave decided he
could use the climb up the stairs. Seventeen floors would give him time to
breathe.
“I think I’m dying,” was all that Dave could manage as
Katherine from HR asked him how he was somewhere near the sixth floor.
Good lord, Amy was right, thought Dave. I
need more exercise.
“Want me to hold the door, Dave?” said Fred from the elevator
bank.
“Thanks,” said Dave as he manoeuvred himself into the
elevator beside Fred. Dave didn’t think the smile on his friend’s face was
necessary.
Dave sat down at his desk, the huge square window lighting
him from behind like Jesus. His wife hated when he joked about things like that.
Hmmm, he exhaled through his nose.
He clicked his mouse awake and the tiny hourglass appeared as
the computer geared itself up for what was coming. Dave clicked on the email he
had been writing. “Mom,” the subject line read. “M-A-R-K,” Dave typed into the
address box. The computer supplied the rest. Dave thought that it was worth
waiting the extra three seconds for the computer to boot up so long as it
continued to read his mind.
Dave ran his tongue across his teeth. He tasted mustard and
onions and the metallic tang of the paperclips that he had been playing with
all morning.
This stuff brings people together, Dave told himself. He clicked send.
Pending …
Message failed, his computer
told him.
“Resend,” Dave answered back.
Pending …
Pending …
The phone on his desk rang. Line two.
“Hello? Hello, Mr. O’Donald? It’s Dr. Hamilton.” Dave wiped
his hand across his mouth, bracing himself. He always braced himself.
“Your mother has suffered a blood clot,” the doctor told
Dave. “She’s stable now, but your father is asking to see you.”
As Dave rushed out of the fifteen storey office building, his
red tie choking him in the Chicago wind, his computer pinged a response.
