I haven’t been able to write anything coherent lately due to life getting in the way but here’s a flash fiction story I wrote years ago. It was a winner of the “Will Write for Food” contest put on by the Southern California Writers’ Association. We were given a picture and instructed to write a 250-word story inspired by it. Following is the picture and the story I came up with.
Learning Manners
In 1969, I was a rebellious teenager. So my parents, deciding that I needed to learn appreciation for them and civilization, sent me to stay with my grandfather in the mountains. He didn’t even have TV. The first week, Grandpa put me to work in his vegetable garden. Next to the garden was an old sign that was a thesaurus of verbs warning people to stay off the plants. I hadn’t seen another person for a week, so I asked Grandpa why it was there. Grandpa was cleaning his shotgun at the time.
“Well,” he said finally, “I had a young feller used to run through my property. I asked him nice not run in my garden, but he said he wasn’t running, he was jogging. Every time he ran through my garden, he said something sassy. So, I put up my sign and added the word. Just to let him know I was paying attention, you see.” Grandpa paused, inserted two shells in the shotgun, and snapped it shut. “Well, when I ran out of room for words on the sign, I peppered him with my gun here.”
I stared at Grandpa, horrified.
Grandpa grinned. “I didn’t use buckshot,” he assured me. “Just rock salt. But it got the young feller’s attention. Which brings me to you. Your mama asked if I could teach you some manners. You think I should?”
I mended my fractious ways. I didn’t want Grandpa teaching me manners.