Babe…

I awoke with a snort, squinting into the early morning sunshine. It was already hot as hell. My mouth tasted like the bottom of last night’s ashtray. I tasted hard, gritty sand against my teeth. My tongue moved around, looking for moisture. I lay there, too weary and apathetic to move. I closed my eyes. Time passed. The sun got hotter. My scorched skin stretched tight over my face, feeling like it would blister and crack at any moment. I could hear the gentle lapping of waves on the sand nearby. My parched throat closed as I craved a long, cold drink of Tacise.

Shaking the thoughts away, the rest of my senses returned and with them an overpowering stench of rotten cabbage and urine. The toxic smell assaulted my nostrils, making me gag. The taste of bitter vomit stained the back of my throat. I turned and saw the culprit – a steaming pile of green wastopaneer. Damn, those Synbatecs were a pain! Desperate to quench my thirst, I staggered to my feet and set off down the beach in search of water.

“Oi, you filthy pig, get off my land!”

I turned my head to see who was shouting. To my amazement, standing with hands planted on her hips, was a blonde bombshell in a skimpy turquoise bikini, breasts barely contained by the two tiny scraps of material masquerading as a top. Scarlet lips formed a hard line beneath her cold blue eyes. How had I not noticed her? Maybe I’d caught a touch of the swine flu doing the rounds. I glanced around the deserted beach for the object of her disgust. Slowly, the penny dropped that it was me.

Filthy pig? How dare she?

I looked down and noticed that I was, in fact, a pig.

This blog originally appeared as part of a contest. The rules of the contest were:

Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be
flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

• that it’s morning,
• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach
• that the MC (main character) is bored
• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting
• that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: “synbatec,” “wastopaneer,” and “tacise.” (These words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).

Visit Claire’s blog at claire.hennessy@blogspot.com to check out more of her work.