Three Vignettes

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

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Here’s a few excerpts from a new story of mine.

P.S. – The artwork is mine too – a watercolour view of Caye Caulker from the Peach on the Beach looking towards the Split.

920 words

Three Vignettes

By Mitchell Toews

Copyright Mitchell Toews ©2017

One

Albert Thibodeau’s sister Suzanne was sick. His parents were ashen-faced and silent, going about the farm and household business by rote. Albert did homework in her room, his scribblers spread out on the flat, quilted blanket.

Suzanne lay unmoving. When Albert came in the room she would stir, her eyes opening and a thin smile on her lips. Her gums were too red. He would read her jokes from his Archie and Jughead Digest.

[SNIP]

Two

…”One dog, with peppers,” said Bob, busying himself with a bag of buns.

“And MUSH!” said Albert Thibodeau. “Gotta meet sis today and hear about how great she is doing.”

“Tell her I love her.”

“No dice. You are below that woman’s pay grade. You are a smelly dog, selling smelly dogs to other smelly dogs.”

“I love you too, Thibodeau,” said Bob, handing him a foil-wrapped hot dog. Albert tooled down the opposing ramp, skidding into a turn at the bottom in the March slush and then pumping hard twice to get to a picnic table on the courthouse lawn.

“Hey, drivers and registration please!”

[SNIP]

Three

Suzanne lay in the chaise. She was shaded by a wicker palapas and palms. Several green and brown coconuts lay in the sand around her. She gazed out past the reef – “beyond the swash,” like they said here – to where the water was a darker blue.

An easel stood near the lounge chair and a watercolour was underway.

“Carolina blue, cerulean blue, cobalt blue,” she said, from under the brow of a sun hat.

“Labatt’s Blue,” said Albert…

[SNIP]

13:05 1.8.17: Wish me luck in placing this flash fiction with an ezine or lit journal! I’ll post if and when it runs; if it becomes a cherished, “We are pleased to inform you…” 

allfornow – mitch

Re-post: http://slklassen.com

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Here is a re-post of an SL Klassen blog item (The Drunken Mennonite). Enjoy!

Creatures of the (Menno) Night

The drink recipe/description harked me back to a trip to Belize, where Janice and I sat incognito in the Water Taxi terminal, acting for all the world like “Englanders” as we secretly listened in on the Plautdietsch conversations of Old Colony Mennonites in the waiting room.

So quaint, our specious faces said. Oh bah NAY! our true voices, right out of a Steinbach church basement, rang out inside our deceitful heads.

I think we were outed though, my white eyebrows and Russian cro-magnon forehead gave me away – a map of Moltoschna is printed on my scowling mug.

Speaking of mugs, the glass from which I will drink my Halloween El Diablo/Devil in a Thrift Shop will be one of our remaining Belize Belikin Beer glasses. I have captured it digitally, in empty repose, calmly awaiting its beverage.

“Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine…”

P.S. – I loved Halloween and because we were not churchy people (yes, we were THAT family) I had no holds barred. My friends were more constrained, so a fun part of those early Halloweens was to help them sneak out, get costumed, eat a crap-load of candy and come home without showing any effects. As I recall, my more churchified friends would eat sunflower seeds and drink Wonder Oil afterwards to remove the tell-tale STANK of sugar from their breath.

P.P.S. – Fresh from BC, “Halloween Apples” were permitted, even for PKs and HPKs. (Preacher’s Kids and Horny Preacher’s Kids. BTW, I always thought that meant that the KIDS were horny, not the preachers, but I did not go to bible school, so I can’t say for sure.)