antique

Hello friends,

It feels oh-so-good to be back in action after a brief layoff from practice. Once again, I’m presenting a true drabble—100-words exactly!—that emerged out of working with a prompt offered by

Miguel S.

. You can check out his story here:

Microdosing Fiction - 100mg of Antique

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Photo by Samuel Ramos on Unsplash

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something old…

I spent a lot of time in antique stores with k last year, shopping for decor for our then-upcoming wedding. We spent more hours than I’d care to count agonising over which brass candlesticks best fit our vibe and where the best deals on glass hurricanes could be found. (Okay, she spent time agonising over the details, I mostly fretted over the damage on the final bill.)

At some point in our travels it occurred to me—way too late, I’m ashamed to say—that I ought to be scoping out fascinating relics to incorporate into future stories. So thereafter whenever I stumbled on an antique that struck me as particularly interesting or unusual, I’d snap a pic to save for later. And, naturally, when I saw the prompt “antique,” I was quite excited and knew I had to scroll for inspiration.

I’m not sure I’d consider the item which inspired this micro (pictured below) an antique in the classical sense, but it was old and ugly and second-hand enough to warrant a spot next to a vast assortment of other knickknacks and tchotchkes, and that’s good enough for me! The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew I had to use it for something. It’s evocative in ways I can’t quite comprehend or explain. Laden with potential seems as good a way to put it as any. Perhaps it deserves a different story, less sordid, but without knowing anything about its true origin, I can only work off of feeling… and I don’t know about you, but just looking at it, I feel like I can sense potential violence, danger. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. But I get the sense that I wouldn’t want to live in the same house as that... thing. Reeking, as it surely must, of stale beer, broken dreams, cigarette smoke, and despair.

Please enjoy,

c.d.

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antique

He stumbles in drenched in the usual scent, eau du shithead.

But in his hand, squeezed between calloused fingers, is something you don’t expect: a glass decanter stained Bud-bottle brown (of course) in the shape of a seated dog. Around the dog’s neck is a leather collar studded with brass pins, and attached to the collar, by a thin brass chain, is a leather tag that reads, “Drinkin’ Ain’t For Dogs.”

You notice the dog’s grinning stupidly. So’s he.

“Drinkin’ Ain’t For Dogs”…

Another look at his vapid grin and you can only shake your head. Present company excluded evidently.

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