Flower, Eggs, Milk
(Random 2-word prompt- egg, wreck)
He
needed eggs for the kitchen... for the cook.
Just one tray. And just a short
walk up the street and back.
It
should’ve been easy. Over easy.
It
should’ve been quick. Quiche?
But
it had all ended up a bit of a pavlova.
Mrs
Spatchcock was baking tarts for the palace, but Flower had overslept- he’d been
up late working at the pier- and he’d scrambled his responsibilities; it was
his job to order the ingredients, and he’d messed up. He’d meant to order a churn of milk and two
dozen eggs, but…
“What
on earth am I meant to do with this much milk?”
The cook shouted and screamed, and cracked him round the ear with her
palm. “And one egg?!”
“Uhm…
let me fix it.” And Flower had whisked away,
with a bruise on his head and some coins in his hand, to the sunny side up of
town, to the grocer’s, to buy a new tray of eggs… and to escape a beating from the
cook.
He ran up the street
and bought the goods with haste.
“Oi!
You gotta pay for that!” The grocer
caught him poaching a roll from the counter, he was starving, as he’d left with
his arm full of eggs, and he tossed a spare coin to the man before he walked
out the door with a spring in his step and no longer a care in the world.
But
that coin was devilled; it fell, and it bounced, and it chased Flower outside. He hummed a tune as he chewed the bread,
nonchalant, unaware of the catastrophe that rolled between his feet and took
the lead.
The
coin careened down the hill, and swerved left as it hit a loose stone; it rattled
to a halt and waited in front of a shop.
Flower,
his bread devoured, whistled and walked.
He could see the door of the kitchens at the bottom of the street, and
Mrs Spatchcock in the doorway, arms crossed and face thawing. The morning was improving, or so he thought…
Meanwhile,
a man in a hat spotted the cursed coin, and ducked to retrieve it, but as he
rose up triumphantly, the golden disc aloft in his hand, a woman burst from the
shop, blinded by parcels stacked high, and barrelled into him. The coin flipped from his grasp.
Ignorant
Flower, unaware of the calamitous collision, waved to the cook with his free
hand; he was almost back.
The
money continued its path through the air; it clinked onto a roof, trundled down
the tiles and swung into the guttering.
It sauntered along the half-pipe, swinging to and fro, never quite
risking a leap to the ground. It swirled
the entrance to the downpipe, and then clattered into the tube.
The
coin rolled out, wheeling along and between the paving stones, ringing a chaotic
tune along its rim before it fell, then stuck unfortuitously between two slabs
just a few metres in front of Mrs Spatchcock.
It stood defiantly on its edge, half in and half out of the pavement…
and unnoticed by the cook, or by Flower.
And
as Flower neared the kitchens, his toe caught on the coin in just the right
place, and his gait faltered and jerked, and the tray of eggs was unleashed
from his grasp and into the atmosphere.
Flower
found his balance just before he fell, but as he stumbled forward, his eyes
caught the horror on the cook’s face as the tray flew up and back down.
The eggs smashed
all over her frittatas, and she screamed.
A cry of shock, at first, but it evolved into rage.
Flower ran, but
Mrs Spatchcock was faster, and she caught him in her grip within seconds. The buxom cook, bosom sodden with ovum and
shells, accosted the short man, who shrank back in terror.
The cook
kicked.
Punishment was
dealt; Flower fell to the floor, clutching his bruised macarons.
And he realised
that it wouldn’t just be the kitchen that needed new eggs…
Ow.
The End.
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