Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Grandma and Her Pipe (Short Story)

I originally wrote this for a Writer's Craft class exercise. Basically, we had twenty minutes to write a story, and every two minutes or so the teacher would put a word/phrase on the board and we'd have to include it at whatever point we were at (the highlighted sections below represent those words). I think it turned out pretty well, and after a little bit of editing, here it is:


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"It was a long, cold, winter's night, and all through the house not a creature was stirring— not even a mouse," said the narrator on TV slowly. As he spoke, images of a dark mansion swooshed on to the screen, followed by shots of small children sleeping in their beds. Christmas spirit was truly in the air... just like the smoke from Artie's Grandmother's pipe.

"I never understood why they play this crap," she said, stroking her substantial belly. "I mean, it's impossible that the human race could have sunk this low. Why, back in my day we had Christmas turkeys you could buy for a dollar at Gimble's. They tasted like a fine cognac had been melted all over the top of them. And that smell! Oh, that smell! Like a freshly born baby, I tell ya! And what's more, a... h... hugh..."

"Grandma, don't get worked up," said Artie, turning around to see his Grandmother clutching her chest, pipe now the floor.

"Dang heart," she spluttered. She reached down to grab her pipe, making an odd noise like a stalled windmill as she did so, and her false teeth fell to the floor with a bang.

"Fore da lov of Pete!" she mumbled incoherently, a long thread of drool stretching from her mouth. "Ge' ma teef boay!"

"I'd rather take a bullet right n-"

"JUS' GE' MA TEEF!"

Artie gagged, reached down to the floor, and grabbed the wet, gummy teeth. Wincing, he handed them to his Grandmother, who snatched them out his hand and hurriedly stuffed them back into her mouth.

"Gosh darn things," she said. "Why, back in my day w-"

She was interrupted by a jittery sound of some sort.

"What in blazes... is that the telephone? Arthur, go get it."

"I don't think that's the telephone, Grandma."

"I know a telephone when I hear one, boy. Go ge-"

Suddenly, the entire left wall of their house was ripped off. An enormous sucking sound, like a giant plunger, and it was gone. The cold air from outside funnelled in through the opening, and standing out in the snowy garden were two small, green aliens. Their heads were the size of grape tomatoes, while their bodies couldn't have been more than three feet high.

"We come in peace," they squealed.

Artie stood motionless, mouth ajar.

"Are ya gonna get the phone or not? What's with this silence, Arthur?" Grandma shouted.

Artie pointed at the green aliens, chalk white in the face. Grandma adjusted her glasses slowly and squinted.

"Are those roaches back again? Always been a problem in this house. These look like some biggums too."

She reached behind the couch, grabbed a shotgun, and pumped the two aliens full of lead. It all happened so fast that Artie had no time to react. He felt like he was going to pass out. It had to be a dream that he would wake up from any second...

"Little chilly in here, ain't it?" Grandma said, reaching for her pipe which still lay, forgotten by Artie, on the floor.

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