Morning all. My brains feel like they have been mixed with molasses so I am hoping that the writing prompt this morning will at least spark something so the molasses can be heated up. And then I plan on lots of coffee. So let’s see if we can warm the brains up with the morning prompt. Timers at the ready. Fingers wiggled and warm. Off we go.
No clue what new fuel would cause such an explosion but I like the fact that Stan was thrown headfirst into the beer cooler. I also suspect Stan is hiding something. No clue what.
Friday, April 28th: The grill was red hot.
The grill was red hot. Stan was no grill master. In fact this was the first cook out he had ever been to. He had however cooked before and somehow, this didn’t look quite right. He looked over to Marty.
Marty was in his element. He was laughing and chatting away, the genial host. The life of the party.
His cheeks glowed pink with beer and good will and his gestures grew expansive. This was his domain. Marty and Cynthia often hosted neighborhood gatherings but usually they were inside. Inside was Cynthia’s domain. She prepared everything set out a spread that was the envy of the neighborhood.
While Stan didn’t really enjoy hearing about how the cheese he was enjoying was hand washed by monks in some small Abbey he had never heard of, in a mountain range he never heard of, he did enjoy the cheese. Even if he did go home and start an often fruitless geographic quest post gathering.
At this point he was certain Cynthia either made up geographic points or was working from a world map completely different from his own. While he often debated Cynthia’s knowledge of alien terrain, it didn’t cause him fear.
Stan had only lived in the neighborhood for a short while as things went. He moved in just after the last outdoor event and only attended the indoor ones. This was his first outdoor adventure with his neighbors.
“Marty,” Stan ventured. “Don’t you think the grill is a little hot?”
Marty laughed. “Of course it’s hot,” he replied. “Can’t grill if it isn’t.”
The other men gathered around their fearless leader chuckled at the statement. Stan was well aware he was not really one of them. He wasn’t considered as manly as the others and knew they made fun of him for it when he wasn’t looking. Now with the beer flowing in abundance, some of their sneers were showing openly. Stan nodded and smiled at the joke knowing he needed to maintain good relations with his neighbors.
“”True,” Stan pressed on. “But don’t you think that is a little too hot.”
“No such thing,” Marty told him. “Gotta get it good and hot. Tell you what. Why don’t you go get yourself a beer and unknot your knickers and then I’ll show you how it’s done.”
The laughter was louder this time and Stan realized he was the only one not drunk. “Maybe I’ll do that.” He said. His goal was to get away from the grill before something happened rather than the quest for a beer. He spotted the cooler across the yard and strode to it. Behind him he heard a comment and more laughter.
‘Let it go,’ he told himself. ‘Just let it go.’
As he walked to the cooler and opened the lid to retrieve his unwanted beer. He heard Cynthia telling one of the women that Marty was excited about some new kind of fuel for his grill.
He reached inside the cooler. His hand closed over an icy cold beer can. The explosion behind him threw him off of his feet. He went tumbling into the cooler head first, his head dunking below the surface. He came up sputtering and spitting ice. Around him, the world was on fire and people were screaming.
Ten til Midnight 