Monday, May 13, 2013

Serendipity

Fiction: Trifecta Writing Challenge. Prompt, use the third definition of deliberate.

It was a whim to put 86 candles on the cake. I had ten more that I put on for ten more years.

I had planned to make a cake for a while. It was a hummingbird cake then Italian Cream Cake. A cook on the news described the chocolate cake he liked. I thought of finely chopped nuts in chocolate icing. It was a tough decision, Chocolate brownie cake or Coca cola cake.

I chose stout yellow candles. Not the normal skinny ones, I wanted to watch them burn. Sip my coffee, look out the window. Think a deliberate thought about the different people who I had loved and blow a few out for each one.

My father said you could live too long. All your friends and loved ones die and you are left alone.  I remember my cousin Agnes died of diphtheria in 1938. My sister Hazel and I were so sad. My dad was putting cardboard in his shoe and said, “It could have been worse; it could have been you.”

Slowly I lit all the candles. It was a beautiful sight. I walked into the kitchen and smoke was pouring from the side of the oven doors. A small square of margarine in the oven was burning. I turned the oven off and the exhaust fan on.  The smoke alarm went off.  I got the fire extinguisher, and then I noticed the flame had gone out.

Throwing open the windows and doors in the back of the apartment to let the smoke escape. I think the neighbors will never know.

Bamm, bamm, bamm on the front door, fire men are on the other side of the peephole. I look at my beautiful cake. Opening the door, I hear myself saying, “It was just a small grease fire.”

Cake is better when you have someone to eat it with others. Next year, the cake will be at the firehouse.

By Francesca Cesa Bianchi, Milano (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0-it (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/it/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

12 comments:

  1. Oh, so lonely... I hope the firemen enjoyed the cake!

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  2. Love the last line! I've enjoyed your cake stories these last few days;)

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  3. I like the last line, too. This is so lonely - the idea of all the friends dying before you is just sad.

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  4. This is a sad but comforting tale Anne great job.

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  5. That's one way of getting guests... well told

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  6. Eating cake alone is sort of a waste, isn't it?

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  7. This had a beautiful rhythm Funny and wise and unexpected. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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  8. Sad but brilliant, and that last line was great

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  9. This is a great trick for getting some company, even if it is a little bit sad that she has no others to share the cake with. Great job with the prompt.

    Thanks for linking up!

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  10. I do admire a resourceful woman!
    Friends and family dying off is sad, but funny story.

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  11. I really like the extra candles and how they stand in for those she has loved.

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  12. This is truly lovely on so many levels. Your narrator is not an *unhappy* person, just lonely because of circumstance. There is a difference and you draw it so subtly. It made me smile.

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