(The story below is restricted to 420 characters including spaces and punctuation).

Jeremy bucked the line to the disgruntlement of seven customers. He smiled like a snake at the young woman behind the window. She told him he was a skunk and must go to the back of the line. He told her to meet him out back in half an hour. Thirty minutes later, Jeremy and the clerk were licking their lips, looking all around and grinning to show yellowish teeth as they traded baseball cards behind the rank dumpster.

The Stone Lion

The Stone Lion

James slouched in a hunting jacket which sported a leather patch on the right shoulder. Nola had dyed her hair orange and purple. They walked in silence across the square which featured only six other people and sat next to a stone lion. James made faces at the statue. He remarked that he knew a lion joke. Nola snickered.

“These two guys ran madly down the road, chased by a lion. The first guy tells the second guy that it is no use their trying to outrun the lion, he would catch them for sure. The second guy replied that he was not running from the lion, he was running to keep just a little ahead of the first guy.”

She laughed a more delicate laugh than her get-up would lead one to expect and lit a cigarette. He fingered the huge paws.

Mummers whirled by, pigeons fluffed and pecked. The sun warmed their noon against the mist. Her sister came to mind again. Six years had passed now. Mother? Would other chances come? Thanksgiving?

James noticed her puddling up and offered his leather shoulder for her to cry on. She buried her head in the pad. James did not know why Nola cried and he felt satisfied to keep it that way. A whimper. She wiped her nose with a rough tan paper napkin. Jenny used to sniff at paper napkins. She thought them low class. Nola did not share her snooty attitude.

Miss Abandoned-at-birth coughed occasionally but otherwise sat in silence. Her hand traveled to her right earlobe and fumbled with the doodad. She thought that she would prefer that he leave now. Mr. Hunting Jacket understood, unbent himself and ambled alone toward the column, looking forward with no expression.

A bell in her mind rang to signal nearing time for her next performance. She pushed herself to the theater and got her props together for the show. Once onstage she relaxed and went rhythmically through her boffo routine, unicycle, slapstick, red nose-ball and all with vacant dexterity. Ten minutes into the performance she noticed Leather-Man sitting in the third row. He bubbled with laughter. Never saw that before. She continued with Indian-clubs and a few magic tricks everyone had seen tens of times on tens of Saturdays, finishing to hollow applause, mostly from children.

She tugged at her remaining energy to slog herself back to the dressing room. As she watched in the mirror her cracked face emerging from cold cream she saw that James stood pensive at the green door looking in. She liked that he had laughed at her performance. He did not say more about the subject. In fact, he said nothing.

The swivel dressing stool creaked when she got up to touch him as he clomped over to her side. He helped her with her coat, put his arm around her and held her tightly as they walked down the long dank corridor all the time her crying on his shoulder. Her performance had shown James an aspect of Nola he had not known. He even had some slight interest in knowing the reasons for her endless tears.

Things would not change tonight or anytime soon. Nola knew it, James knew it too. They bumbled and bumped arm in arm along Regent Street and Waterloo back to the square where they sat shivering close together between the paws of the same stone lion to mark the end of daylight.

End.

He Said, She Said

Some people swore that the house was haunted. She said that it wasn't.

So I Tweeted her and she Tweeted me, and that's how we met. I said if she could tell me all about that so-called haunted house in one Tweet. She said I am tall, thin, red-haired and my skin hurts. I hate geeks and atheists.

So I said Well, I am a geek and an atheist. But I want to hear about the house. Want to have coffee?

So she said no.

So I said That's just because your skin hurts. Meet me at Coffee Dan's at 8.

So she said FO.

So I said I'll be there.

She said Ha!

So I went and there was this tall thin red-headed girl with a pained expression. I said hi and she said hi. We sat down together and had some coffee, regular. She wanted to go out and smoke.

So she left and I sat there nursing my regular. Lo and behold, in walks another red-headed girl with a long skinny body, looking around as if to find someone. I hailed her, she walked toward me, smiling, then walked right past me to catch up to her girlfriend.

So I went home and tweeted her again and said I was there, where were you?

She answered Ha!

Well, you can imagine I was ready to give up on her when all of a sudden I get another tweet from her and she said It was nice that you went there even though I said I wouldn't go. How about tonight?

So I said You bet.

Well, she did show up and so did I and we sat and talked and drank regular for an hour or so. Then she said you want to come over to my place?

I said You bet.

We took the second door on the left and she unlocked that. In we went.

I sat on the canvas couch and she gave me a Dr. Pepper. Then she said now that I have you here, I want to show you something.

I said okay.

She said, this book, it tells you why you should believe in God and why that house is not haunted. I'm going to read it to you out loud, word for word. No interrupting.

I said oh God! And wondered why atheists say oh God!

So she started. I sat for half an hour then said I had an early appointment and left.

So she tweeted me and said come over tonight so I can read you more from the book.

I said no way.

So she said if you let me read my book to you, I'll let you read any book you choose to me.

I figured I could cope with her book and then I could get back at her with a book she couldn't possibly understand. So I said okay.

So I come over every night for two weeks and she reads that damned book aloud till it finally gets finished. So she said your turn. So up I comes with Finnegans Wake. Nobody understands that.

So I started to read but stopped after a few words because it wasn't a sentence. My English teacher told me how to recognize a sentence so I knew it wasn't. Becky (the red-headed girl) said it wasn't a sentence too. We couldn't figure out how a book could start out with not a sentence, so we made out for awhile and I went home. Nothing was ever the same again after that.