Patient Zero (#FlashFicFriday)

Some of us are trying to bring the fun of flash fiction back to Twitter. Here’s my contribution, inspired by Daughter Dearest’s text this morning: Walmart is empty, like nobody in the parking lot. That would be as much a sign of the zombie apocalypse as anything…

Do join us! Go to the #FlashFicFriday blog and leave your link in the collector.

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Heather was alone in the unruly crowd, but she was closer to the doors now. After all the stress of the Thanksgiving family gathering, her friends Brit and Becks (aka The Bs) invited her to a party followed by Black Friday shopping. Seemed like a great idea at the time. “Maybe it’s food poisoning,” she muttered to herself. Aunt Tammy made the most god-awful side dishes, and insisted everyone get some. Not to put too fine a point on it, she felt like shit. Thank God for the crowd, she thought. It’s the only thing holding me up.

A vision of being a Black Friday statistic brought her to her senses.”Girl up,” she growled. “You’re on a mission.” Big-screen TVs were $125 at Mallet’s (“don’t go to the maul, go to Mallet’s!”) and she meant to get two—one for her, one for her cousin Whitney, the only family member she ever looked forward to seeing nowadays.

She looked at the big digital clock over the doors. 4:54 a.m., and Mallet’s would open at five. Her vision was blurry, and her mind wasn’t much better. She focused, trying to piece together what had happened. She never got hammered enough to black out. Maybe Becks was right, and that guy she had hooked up with at the party gave her a roofie. The Bs ended up carrying her to the car, after threatening the guy’s life, and drove with her window open until she came to.

Her shoulder itched, and she winced as she scratched. A memory sputtered to life: the guy had his hand in her shirt—but behind her neck, gently scratching her shoulder. It felt good, so she hadn’t made him stop. The way it felt now, he must have taken a few layers of skin off. “Some pervs have the weirdest kinks,” she said, and this time the mom in front of her glanced over her shoulder.

Plan. Focus. Get what you came for. The terrified employees lined up a bunch of carts, staggered so you could slip between them to get to the first row. The digital clock went to 4:59, then 4:59:30, then the crowd counted down the last ten seconds.

The doors slid open, the employees got the hell out of the way, and the stampede was on. Heather made the most of her solid build, pushing the mom aside, elbowing her way forward, rolling with her staggering run, letting nobody slow her down. She weaved through the carts, grabbed one in the second row as the first row sprinted into the store, and joined the mad chase.

At Electronics, she found the stack of big-screens, and shoved two onto her cart. Someone grabbed her hoodie, trying to yank her backward, and she stepped back and threw an elbow. The stout middle-aged woman grunted and staggered back, and Heather pushed the cart away from the growing melee around the TVs.

Now that she had what she wanted, her resolve and energy crashed. Slumping against the cart, she trundled to the customer service desk in the back.

“You okay?” the flack behind the counter asked. “Do I need to call 911?”

“No,” she managed to reply. “Just need to rest a couple minutes is all.” She collapsed onto the bench and knew no more.


“Hey. Hey.” Shaking. “Hey. If you’re not sick, you have to go. I’ll call 911 if you want.”

She pushed herself up with a grunt, swaying a little. The TVs were gone, so was her purse, but she had no memory of those things. She was here for…

Rrrrowlrrrrr, went her stomach. She was here to eat. And the meat standing before her was as good a start as any.

Charlie on the Ball

Hmmm… cushy!

As part of Charlie’s state-supported foster care, someone comes by the manor every couple of weeks from Babies Can’t Wait, a sort-of physical therapy program for babies with developmental issues. She gets to play with other people’s babies all day and get paid for it, although the therapy part is very real and not all babies are nearly as good-natured as Charlie. He enjoys the time, because she brings all sorts of interesting stuff, but does get worn out toward the end of the session. He gave her his “OK, I’ve had enough” growl on Thursday as she was close to wrapping up anyway.

Physically, Charlie is behind, although he’s starting to show signs of catching up. The therapist has been working on his sitting and grasping, and recommends we give him lots of “tummy time” so he’ll get the hang of crawling. (Usually, he just flips onto his back and grins.)

More fun than the flop-over game!

We try to do some of the things the therapist does, both to help him practice doing stuff he should be doing and to wear him out a little. So this morning, I laid a blanket over the carpet in our bedroom and sat with him. He immediately flopped over, so I had to catch him, and Charlie thought that was a fun game! I tried a little tummy time as well; the first time he inchworm’ed forward a foot or so then laid there. After that, he just flipped onto his back and waited for me to play with him. So I grabbed a couple large Duplo blocks from Mason’s stash and one of those huge Mega Blocks. New game: picking up the blocks (it was easier with them upside down at first) and waving them around, occasionally smacking himself for the fun of it and chewing on the corners. He preferred the blue blocks to the red one, at least at first… but most importantly, he sat freestyle (no leaning against Granddad) for a good ten minutes. So he’s capable, he’s just a bit lazy. In a previous therapy session, he did a fine imitation of Monorail Cat, a boneless sprawl over the ball both on his tummy and his back. I really wanted to get a pic of him doing that, but this time he was more interested in sitting on it. (Rosie the Boston Terror gets anxious when the therapist balances Charlie on the ball… it’s rather cute.)

I’m not concerned with his mental development. He’s always understood that when he’s hungry, and we take him in the kitchen and start mixing stuff, it means the food is on the way and he’ll stop crying and fussing unless he’s half-starved. (You can see in the pix how many meals he misses…) He vocalizes plenty, and has recently added “joyous ear-splitting screech” to his repertoire. That one he usually saves for Mason, either as a reaction to his clowning or to tell him, “Hey, do something funny!” Charlie probably won’t start talking as early as The Boy or Mason (both could say a few words well before age 1), but he could well talk before he walks.

Right now, he’s sleeping off his floor time with me. As I was up until 1am last night, and had to get up with Charlie at 7:30, I’d like to be doing the same.