Waiters are People, Too

By Shawn Klimek

 a Chianti Classico

Two flying saucers started across the room, towing between them a rather harried looking man in a white shirt and black tie.

That’s how hungry I was.

Actually, it was only our waiter, balancing two white dinner plates as he wound his way to us across the crowded restaurant.

“Baby lamb chops, with daikon sprouts, an apple fig chutney and red wine reduction?” he asked.

My date raised her hand. He smiled obsequiously and delivered the plate.

“Which means …” he began, helpfully.

Was he pretending to be stupid?

“The scientist brains are mine,” I finished impatiently, raising a tentacle.

About the author 

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Magic Number

by Shawn M Klimek 

lemonade over dry ice

In her black, hooded ceremonial cloak, the coven high priestess’ candlelit face might have been a disembodied head, floating above the altar. The otherworldly visage scanned her sisters. Each witch nodded deferentially as her stern eyes met their own. Inwardly, she counted. Only eleven had come—too few for the sacred, Ritual of Thirteen. She glanced morosely at the wax pooling around the shrinking candles, sighed, and reaching a decision, struck the bell. The metallic tone lingered eerily.

“Sisters, she said. “Sadly, an even number cannot perform the ritual, but perhaps the night is not lost. Who’s up for Charades?”

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Wave Goodbye

by Shawn Klimek

aged port in a salt-rimmed glass

One white-knuckled grip still on the heaving bow rail, she pointed towards the place we’d seen the massive fluked tail descend, then turned to reveal a face drenched with sea-spray and emotion. “Now, tell me that wasn’t a message from God,” she said.

 

“I love whales,” I countered, “but this planet belongs to humans, too. We all have needs.”

She lowered her head and sobbed, shaking spaghetti strands of wet hair left and right. 

I reached for her shoulder. “Maybe God did speak through the whale,” I allowed. “But give us time. Of what practical use is ‘thirty days’ notice?”

 

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Goodbye, My Lush...

by Shawn Klimek

sloe gin, at high speed

Her dress was askew. Her hair looked like a tumbleweed flattened by a truck.

 She had slipped down off her seat and was groping drunkenly for the dashboard.

Goodbye, my lush, I thought bitterly. I’m leaving you.

We had both been drinking, but tomorrow —as usual, only I would remember.  

As I prepared to leave, my heart ached and it got harder to breathe.  I still loved her.

Then I saw a puddle pooling at her feet, staining her skirt. 

To hell with this, I decided.

Taking a deep breath, I kicked out a window and swam for the surface.

About the author 

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A Golden Memory

by Shawn Klimek

flaming rum with a dash of tears, poured out in libation 

The wedding was definitely off.  Their relationship was irreconcilably over. 

Heartbroken, enraged, she had cut up and set fire to all of their pictures together, every gift he had ever given her, every trace and relic of the cheating bastard. He was dead to her, now.

Only the ring remained.

Tears blurred her vision as she contemplated the final, shiny, golden artifact of their love.  

Somehow, she felt a part of him was still in this ring.

Scraping it out with a polished nail, she flicked it into the pyre.

The ring she would keep.

About the author

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