Feb
5
unnamed story (Part 4)
Jennifer had lived in or near Philadelphia all her life. Downtown most of the time with intermittent years in the suburbs. Her neighbors dog was barking and try as she might she couldn’t roll over and get back to sleep. Dawn was breaking and when she walked outside she was surprised to see a cloudless sky. She assumed, given the clap of thunder during the night, that she was in for a cloudy and perhaps even rainy day.
Townhouse living agreed with her. Neighbors but not too many and none of them living over her. That didn’t make her feel any more kindly to the dog next door. She could see him at the back sliding glass door frantically pacing back and forth.
Once the sun was fully up and she had finished her morning coffee she went back outside to see if the dog was still at the back door. She had heard his endless barking and wondered why nobody had come down to let him out. Once outside the dog made eye contact with her and turned the barking up a notch. She knew the couple next door well so she thought nothing of hopping the fence and knocking on the back window. They both worked and should have been up at that hour.
The dog showed his obvious excitement at her arrival by wagging his tail with such vigor that she was surprised it didn’t detach and go flying across the kitchen. She knocked but no one appeared. For the first time a little concern crept up. In some of the neighborhoods that she’d lived she would immediately assume they had both been shot in the head as a result of a home invasion but not she was far enough away from that world that her mind wasn’t ready to add that to the list of possible explanations.
She tried the door and found it open. The dog sprinted by her and out into the yard for a much-needed pee. She called out as she entered the house but nobody replied.
At this point you can probably connect the dots.
Confusion.
Panic.
Despair.
And then she saw a flare in the sky. It didn’t seem to be tremendously far away so she grabbed her keys and jumped into her car.
By now you might also be asking yourself why I haven’t bothered to describe any of the females in any detail. The truth is that Clay had a very particular ‘type.’ His friends and family would see a girl and say to themselves “Uh oh. Clay will be chasing after this one.”
With the exception of his wife Patti, they all looked roughly the same; blonde, younger, petite, perky. Clay wasn’t particularly good looking but he carried himself with a certain confidence that allowed him access to women who from afar appear to be a bit out of his league.
I could insult your intelligence and add some little quirk to each other girls mentioned so far but eventually you’ll be able to tell them apart.
I hope anyway.
Believe me, I’d love to be able to slip in a black or Indian girl at this point and make the story look like most of the commercials these days, where it appears that every couple going out to eat or buying insurance is bi-racial. We both know that if this is ever made into a movie there will be blonder perky white girls all over the place but I’ll be forced into including one black one but as nobody gives a shit about this story so far I’m letting Clay decide who his ex girlfriends are.
Does that mean Samantha and Jennifer are also ex girlfriends?
You’re just going to have to keep reading.
As a writer, what I wouldn’t give to have one of the ex girlfriends be a transsexual. Not only would it make me look open-minded and accepting of different lifestyles but it would also open up a myriad of possible storylines and, immediately ruining any good feelings I might have garnered from the LGBT community, a few good penis jokes.
But no. Clay likes blonde, younger, petite, perky and he doesn’t give a damn about my needs. I’m not even done introducing other girls and I don’t have the slightest idea how to tell them apart. I’m going to have to start adding moles and prosthetic limbs. And don’t kid yourself, prosthetic limbs demand a back story and I’m already bored with describing people. You can’t just mention that Betty (the one girl who will not be entering this story) has a robot arm and leave it at that. Readers will demand to know how she lost the arm and I’ll be forced to come up with some dopey explanation involving an accident at the dry cleaners that lopped it off.
Not so with moles. Nobody needs any information about moles. In fact, most readers prefer that you don’t even mention them at all but as a writer it’s good to sprinkle in a few just in case somebody needs to die of skin cancer later on in the story.
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