365/2 Day Two

Henry told her that he was in love with a ghost, and she laughed and said, “So am I.”

            “That’s quite the coincidence,” he said. “What’s your ghost like?”

            She took off his hat and clutched it against her chest, letting her fingers intertwine across the brim. There was an eagerness about her that he had never witnessed before, Henry noticed. Her knuckles were turning white with the force of her grasp, as if she was afraid to let the hat go. “He’s funny,” she said. “He’s funny, and he’s balding a bit early. And he’s never home on time.”

            Henry tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in his throat like a bad excuse. There had been no menace in her voice, and yet the joke had been just smart enough to sting. “He sounds terrible!”

            “Oh, he isn’t too bad. When we have kids, they’ll be part ghost, you know.” She plucked at the rim of his hat and returned the nervous laugh with one of her own. “They’ll be part ghost, but all him and me.”

            “Do you want kids?”

            The hat dropped to the ground, suddenly abandoned. “No,” she said. “I want you home on time.”

Three Words Origins that I Ended Up Googling

Prom- Short for promenade. Why didn’t I think of that? We got it from the French verb promener, to take for a walk. The French took it from the Latin promināre, used mostly to describe the driving out of dangerous animals (which accurately describes my experience at prom.)

Slogan- This one I actually looked up, after failing to think up any Latin or Greek roots. It’s actually an amalgamation of two Gaelic words: Slaugh and Gheun – ‘Battle’ and ‘Cry,’ respectively.

Sniper- I don't even remember why I looked this up. Why did I look this up? Anyway, it refers to someone who can kill a snipe. What’s a snipe? Pic related. Apparently they’re fast little buggers.

What a cutie.

365/2 Challenge - Day 1

New Challenge: 200 words a day, every other day.
(My friend Bridg and I just did the math- That's 36,500 words! Unless our math is totally off.)

Here's Day 1 out of 365/2 drabbles. This one makes me want chicken fingers.

            “You’re a sinner,” she said.

            “Sinner, winner.” He threw his hands in the air, mimicking a scale in the swing of balance. “Chicken dinner. It’s all the same thing at the end of the day. The important part is repentance, when you get down to it. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Price?”

            Mrs. Price adjusted one of the peacock feathers on her hat. It occurred to McElroy that Mrs. Price wasn’t a hat person. She was a fat person. Her remarkable attraction towards hats with large feathers was akin in his mind only to a hippo's appetite for plump pheasants. Trot out of the water, Mrs. Price, he thought with a grim smile. Waddle your gargantuan hippo legs onto shore and get that tasty pheasant.

            “Except,” she trilled, unaware of his safari-esque reflection. “Except, you aren’t repenting, are you?"

            McElroy looked shocked. “That is a matter between God and me. Do you wish to get between God and me, Mrs. Price?”

            “No, but-”

            “As always, your opinion is of the utmost importance to me, Mrs. Price. However, this is a matter where I’m afraid we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

            Mrs. Price slapped him across the face.