Each week we feature a story written by one or two of our group members at one of our meetings. For this week's featured stories, the group took previously generated characters from two weeks prior and set them against an antagonist. We had 20 minutes to write.
Dweezil's Lament
By Bryan Mahoney
A single unrelenting beam of sunlight forced itself into Dweezil’s eye. The daily affront, while annoying, signaled the oncoming meal delivery. Once again Dweezil, who was irritable to begin with, engaged in the psychological push and pull that was his routine.
The blonde in the New Kids On the Block shirt dusted some rainbow fish flakes on the pristine flat surface of Dweezil’s ceiling.
“I’m sick of these mudder skippin’ flakes on this mudder skippin’ plane,” he said, floating over to catch them while they sank.
Marina, his sister, casually emerged from their one-fishroom studio apartment shaped like a treasure chest. Her mood was kelpable.
“Dweezil, cut the carp,” she said. Her fins drooped lazily in the bowl’s insipid undercurrent. “This isn’t the time or place to get all self-righteous abut the food you didn’t have to catch.”
Dweezil darted at the food, tapping into some primal instinct that made him want to kill things with his mouth. He spit one out.
“Sun of a perch,” he cried. “Arame? I HATE arame. She knows this. I swear, Marina, she tries to grind my gills on porpoise.”
As daintily as she could, Marina sampled some red and yellow flakes.
“Mmm – nori! I’m not usually into foreign food but this codfish stuff, it’s not half bad.”
Dweezil sank to the bottom. He chewed some gravel bits, hoping to glean flavor from their previous meal.
“Gotta be some of that green stuff here somewhere,” he said.
Marina puckered. “We go through this every time. Why can’t you just be happy with something just once? Why are you always so miserable?”
Dweezil sulked between the legs of a plastic skeleton holding a sword.
“Because we’re not meant to be here. Look at the sun out there. It’s supposed to flicker and wave at us, to show all the sheen of our scales. We are in this stagnant pool that is never the right temperature. It’s all bullshark. All of it. And cod clammit I’ve had enough.”
Marina rolled her impressively large eyes. In the ocean she’d have all the boys lining up to mate. She’d have her pick with one look at those round black onyx orbs. They reflected the depths of the ocean and the depths of her soul.
“Mudder flipper,” she said to her brother. “You may have a point. Dweezil, we’re getting out of here.”
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