Here’s a short story vignette that I had posted on a private blog but I wanted to locate them all in one place. I don’t plan on developing the story further than I’ve brought it. It’s a sampling of life, a taste of a fictional happening. I’m reserving rights to this for myself so I would rather you link to it than copy any portion of it.

On the porch of a semi-attached home sits Angela Gomery who is too young to be a mother but waiting for the babysitter nevertheless. Angela tries to look patient, mimicking the resolve of her own mother but the way she leans forward too far or how her hand keeps the pulse of her cell phone’s time says otherwise.

Angie (no Angela) adjusts her recently bought shirt and hopes that the neckline dries though it won’t. Her hair is still wet, combed, yet not styled: it’s not that she forgot how to do it; it’s just that she was taken out of the game before it became a skilled habit.

She closes her eyes and her thoughts drift to the new man in her life: Billy. Billy was all fire and passion and strong hands that open the doors and beams a smile underneath his cap that just shines like the day beneath clouds during Town-Fest.

Because the clouds always came first during that time of year, still too early in the year to feel the supreme heat of summer but way too late in the year to leave the Spring nights behind. And with those clouds, kids all over town would wake up and fear that they wouldn’t be getting any whoopee pie or funnel cake or even get to milk a cow which they all liked to do in concept but were actually afraid once they were on line.

A line that Kevin was standing on this very moment, waiting his turn as another kid balked while the hug cow lay on its side wondering why people just wouldn’t release the milk. But Kevin had screwed up the courage this year to go all the way with it and to make a show.

Off to the side of the line stood Kevin’s parents, camera’s at the ready as they prepared to cheer their proud 7 year old. And Kevin, happy that as the only ex-city kid in school he would be the first 7 year old of his class to milk the cow and would now receive the respect of classmates.

The sun breaks through and there’s a barely audible sigh as Kevin’s parents raise their digital camera’s, tilting them downward over their heads preparing to take the picture and Kevin’s turn comes up. He stares down at that cow that mewls and complains about the whole milking business and Kevin dives in, grabs the milk sack and squirts once into a bottle before pulling back his hand as if burnt by fire. The old farmer hands over a wipe, someone says next and like that it’s over; but not for Kevin.

Inside he’s cheering knowing that he’s the first, the very first!

Quickly Kevin runs up to his parents and wonders why they look so red in the face, but then understands as he sees that both of them had their cameras too high and too angled so all they got was Kevin’s sneakers in one and the Cow in the other. Kevin wouldn’t be able to prove to the class or to the teacher Old Mrs. McConnickle that he had ever milked a cow.

But Old Mrs. McConnickle would later receive those two pictures and think they were the best pictures she had seen in a long time. She wouldn’t pin them on the wall because that sort of thing could embarrass first graders but she would take it home to her husband Ben McConnickle who would grunt some sort of response before going upstairs to bed, as he always did at 8:00 pm.

But come morning, over coffee Ben and Mari, as he called her for short, would sit around the table and chuckle over school papers or student notes or photos like Kevin’s. Mrs. Marian McConnickle would laugh with her husband Ben of fifteen years, giggling like the day they had first met.

But on this Saturday, Mrs. McConnickle would serve Ben sun tea and sit outside on her front porch while looking at the people that passed by. Like there was lil’ Tommy who was now a man of thirty with a wife and two kids and there was Jenny who had been boy crazy throughout school but now was happily married to another woman and there was poor Angie who had gotten pregnant at thirteen, riding in that pickup with Bad News Billy.

Mrs. McConnicle would sigh then, sipping her tea as in that passing pickup Angie (no Angela) wouldn’t wave and wouldn’t see but kept her eyes on her Billy.