Shells
I'm not entirely sure where this came from. Anyway, a flash-fic (393 words) for your Friday, to be read when it's light.
Betty's been a teller at the Crombie Street branch for eighteen years. The name of the bank's changed four times, she's lived through twice as many managers, but Monday through Friday (holidays excepted) she's stayed at her post here at the first window on the right.
The first window on the right has an old-fashioned, wrought-iron grill - fossil-reminder of a time long before Betty, she thinks. Her husband collects fossils, and although she's tried hard not to listen to his yapping about trilobites and ammonites and gastropods, some of it's stuck. The iron bars are twisted into curves that look like shells pressed into stone.
Whenever she gets an annoying customer, one of those demanding types who need to insult her or tell her what she already knows, she looks up at the bars and thinks about dead seas and little animals curled into rocks, safe against the tides. Keeps her from braining the customers with her stapler, anyway.
The man who approaches her window on this rainy Friday afternoon doesn't seem like she'll be thinking about staplers. He's tall and trench-coated, and the harsh fluorescent light seems to ripple off his polished cheekbones - what she can see under his old snap-brim hat, anyway. A handsome man, to say the least.
Betty, who's been married for a damn long time, feels a little flutter, a rush of... something. Her professional smile is a deeper curve than usual. “Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”
The man smiles back. “Good afternoon, ma'am,” he says, in a deep, murmurous voice. She has to lean closer to hear it, and she smells the ocean on him - saltwater and seaweed -- which is strange, since they're five hundred miles from the coast. “I'd like to make a withdrawal.”
“Certainly, sir,” she says. “Do you have an account with us?”
As she says the usual words, though, she sways closer. His skin gleams even in shadow. The one or two locks of hair curling onto his forehead under the hat look wet. Ocean-smell gets stronger here.
“Perhaps,” he says, and smiles.
Above her head, the iron bars gleam like his skin, like water on rock. She hears the sound of tiny claws scratching, scratching, scratching.
“Perhaps,” he says again.
From a curve of iron that looks like a shell, a claw emerges.
May any transformations in your day be good ones. :-)
Betty's been a teller at the Crombie Street branch for eighteen years. The name of the bank's changed four times, she's lived through twice as many managers, but Monday through Friday (holidays excepted) she's stayed at her post here at the first window on the right.
The first window on the right has an old-fashioned, wrought-iron grill - fossil-reminder of a time long before Betty, she thinks. Her husband collects fossils, and although she's tried hard not to listen to his yapping about trilobites and ammonites and gastropods, some of it's stuck. The iron bars are twisted into curves that look like shells pressed into stone.
Whenever she gets an annoying customer, one of those demanding types who need to insult her or tell her what she already knows, she looks up at the bars and thinks about dead seas and little animals curled into rocks, safe against the tides. Keeps her from braining the customers with her stapler, anyway.
The man who approaches her window on this rainy Friday afternoon doesn't seem like she'll be thinking about staplers. He's tall and trench-coated, and the harsh fluorescent light seems to ripple off his polished cheekbones - what she can see under his old snap-brim hat, anyway. A handsome man, to say the least.
Betty, who's been married for a damn long time, feels a little flutter, a rush of... something. Her professional smile is a deeper curve than usual. “Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”
The man smiles back. “Good afternoon, ma'am,” he says, in a deep, murmurous voice. She has to lean closer to hear it, and she smells the ocean on him - saltwater and seaweed -- which is strange, since they're five hundred miles from the coast. “I'd like to make a withdrawal.”
“Certainly, sir,” she says. “Do you have an account with us?”
As she says the usual words, though, she sways closer. His skin gleams even in shadow. The one or two locks of hair curling onto his forehead under the hat look wet. Ocean-smell gets stronger here.
“Perhaps,” he says, and smiles.
Above her head, the iron bars gleam like his skin, like water on rock. She hears the sound of tiny claws scratching, scratching, scratching.
“Perhaps,” he says again.
From a curve of iron that looks like a shell, a claw emerges.
May any transformations in your day be good ones. :-)