Day 21 of FlashNano 2022...write a fiction piece prompted by the last message on your phone.
Cranky Old Woman
Ellen couldn’t complete the Flash Fiction assignment for the day: to use the last message on her cell phone as a prompt.
The reason?
No one left messages.
Why?
She had refused to give her mobile’s number to anyone except to a place she would need a code, like her bank. Even her husband didn’t have her number.
Why?
She
didn’t want phone calls. Even with her precautions there would be rings interrupting what she was doing, seeing, thinking.
Her husband insisted she take her cell to the studio when she was painting in case of emergency. She did. She left if off.
Her cell had one great use as a camera letting her snap discoveries that might be used as a base for other paintings or just things she’d looked at that interested her.
Today, she had had lunch with Janine and Emma. Both women had spent most of the first half of the meal on their phones, albeit it with an, “Excuse me, I should take this.”
In the brief moment when both alleged friends were free, halfway through Emma’s salmon with a lemon sauce, Ellen had thrown down her fork. “I’m leaving. If I come out to lunch with people I want to eat with those I can talk to.”
The night Janine messaged her on Facebook. Emma had sent an e-mail. Neither apologized for ignoring her, each other, or the food.
She had not even a chance to share her great news about her upcoming exhibition in the best gallery in Boston.
Emma wrote she was being a COW—cranky old woman.
Life
was too short to spend her time with people who were spending their time with
others when allegedly they were with her. Mooooo, Ellen thought as she checked
her other messages. And proud of it.
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