Whatever you’re running to or from, there comes a point when you realize you’re running on empty. When that’s the case, what you find is a change of circumstance and a change of heart. In this week’s installment of Genres Not Included, the best typewriter improv on the planet, authors Joe Nelson and Eva Newcastle give in to a mellower form of micro fiction. Enjoy the short story created with the standard limit of five tweets each, raw and unedited.
The indignant shot Big Brother in the back.
The audience cheered.
The house lights dimmed.
A tin can rolled down the aisle.#GenresNotIncluded, the best typewriter improv this side of mayhem, could resume. Joe starts this week’s installment. Take it away, @BooksPointof!
— Eva Newcastle, September 6, 2024
Whether you were running away from your past or running toward your future, you were still running.
And running got pretty lonesome once you’d passed the point of no return.
It was also tiresome.
Thankfully the truck stop outside Sioux Falls was open all hours.
That truck stop wasn’t the biggest like the one Ian passed when he blew through Iowa. The point wasn’t the selection or the tourists to share the public restrooms with. The point was slithering in unnoticed by maybe one, and see what transpired in the wee hours of the morning.
First up: coffee and a late dinner. Or, if your concept of time was more literal, a very early breakfast.
The waitress was younger than him by a decade. Her name tag said ‘Mandy’.
He wondered if she had roots or if she were a runner. He always wondered about kindred souls.
“What’ll it be, stranger?” she asked, clichéd.
Yep. She was a local chick. He eyed her low-cut yellow uniform and the three-tiered plastic stand on the Formica counter. Cute. He threw her a grin.
“How old are those pies? ” he asked.
Mandy debated whether to serve him some flirt.
There were hundreds of strangers who came through every day. Mandy, working the 10-to-6 shift, saw some of the weirder ones.
All of them men.
But Mandy saw something in this stranger. In his pale gray eyes was a message she could not decipher.
The pies had been made yesterday.
Making a late-night sale plus a good tip was the goal. She could low-key lie or pull the honesty trick. She debated, blurting out the truth with an eye roll.
“That old, huh? Well, I tell ya what, sweetheart. Why don’t you plate me two of ’em and your number. How’s that sound?”
He had a nice smile. Mandy gave him a slice of cherry and apple. And a number that wasn’t actually hers but she hoped would earn her a good tip.
Ian knew it was a game. She had probably been born one town over and was frustrated but settled.
He was still running.
She’d used that number thousands of times. Next week, if she got fired for patronizing with the customers, she’d get fired again. But there were only so many diners she could run to — and from. Mandy leaned across the counter. Two runners. Two slices of pie. One road. She fessed.
“You know what’s out there?” Ian asked, gesturing vaguely westward, beyond the blacktop.
“Not me,” she admitted. “I ain’t left South Dakota. Yet.”
Ian cocked his head. “I don’t know either. But I aim to find out.”
The road behind was scary to look at. The road ahead a mystery.
“I’m tired of running,” she said, wistfully.
“I hear ya.” He’d wandered in expecting the usual side of slut and hash. What he got was sincerity. That was a crazy idea.
“To go?”
“Pack four,” he said.
She clocked out and grabbed four slices. Two strangers stole a leap of faith.
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