“Careful.” My wife points at our white tortoiseshell vase. “I sense you’ll break one soon.”
I tiptoe down the hall past it, mockingly slow.
Her tweezed brows drop.
“Sorry.” I raise my hands and hit our painting: her painting of the vase. It crashes down, frame snapping, canvas tearing. I grit my teeth.
Afterword
The mission was to write a story of exactly 53 words about ‘grit’.
Stories about perseverance/bravery came first to mind. Then I played with the idea of a story involving gravel. But, when I remembered the expression “grit my teeth”, I knew I wanted to use that.
The flash fiction piece above was inspired by the Oracle scene in the The Matrix (what an amazing movie, and what a brilliant scene!). You know the one in the Oracle’s kitchen, where she says, ‘And don’t worry about the vase.’ (Then he breaks it, apologises, asks how she knew, and she replies: ‘Ohhh, what’s really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?’)
Again, I wanted to put a fun spin on that, so I have the main character break a painting of a vase, after receiving a warning and making a joke out of it.
Photo attribution: thanks to Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash.