Bella Vista: Madge Makes Up Her Mind

One Trick Pony

For the last fifteen or so years I've been living with a bunch of dead guys at a motel in West Texas. Like the characters in my stories, I'd really like to move on, see the world, go places. But I'm just like them. Anchored by love, worn down by circumstances and fascinated by how much there really is underneath it all. So I keep writing their stories and tell myself that someday, when I've got this all out of my system, I'll write deep, meaningful literature about... something else. In the meantime, this is a place for the short attention spanned. I'm making a commitment to keep it small here. Flash fiction and scenes from the life inspired by, The Bella Vista Motel.

Thanks for reading.

Pamila

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Madge Makes Up Her Mind - 7

Slappy scratched his unruly mop of dark curly hair, and said, "Humph," in response to Madge's insistence that the cleaning girl had "run off." He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he looked at her, glanced at the wall, and then walked over to the edge of the clearing to gaze out at the featureless wasteland surrounding the motel grounds. He pulled his pack of Luckys out of his shirt pocket, stuck one in his mouth and turned to look at her again as he struck a match with his thumbnail and lit it. She straightened her shoulders and stuck her chin up, ran a hand over her hair to smooth it unnecessarily and started back toward the courtyard. "You want me to go out to the flats with you?" He asked before she stepped into the walkway. He saw her hesitate briefly before she glanced back over her shoulder and met his eye with that stubborn expression he had come to know so well and assured him, "I got myself out there just fine the first time, thank you all the same."