“Your I-pod for a month.” He said. His eyes stared through the glass.

“No way” she snapped.

“2 weeks” he negotiated.

“1 week”

“Done. And next time it’ll be my choice.”

She rolled her eyes and bit the corner of her lips. “We’ll see…”

His voice was cold “There is nothing to see. Either that or the deal is off.”

“You know the more I think about this, I feel I am getting a bad deal.”

“Well no one is forcing you. You can still back out if you want. I’ll be happy to get myself a… hmm… lets see”

“Fine!” She cut him short.

“Fine what?”

“Fine. Next time it’ll be your choice. Now don’t push it.”

“Alright, which one do you want?”

“Da-uh! Strawberry!”

“Okay” he turned to the counter “Excuse me mister. We’d like one strawberry and one chocolate cupcake please.”

“Nick. What are you doing?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“You told me that mom gave money to buy only one?”

“Oh, about that…” he sported a wide grin “I forgot to add – for you!”

Pink was the fattest kid in fifth grade, second fattest in the whole school. Marco Ortiz was the fattest, but when you saw his parents you understood why. They were both huge – sumo huge – standing between them, Marco looked like an Olympian. Pink’s mom was 5’2” and barely 100 pounds. He didn’t know what his real dad looked like but his stepdad Steve, apart from a mild beer belly, was pretty fit. His sister was a rail, but everyone knew it was because she’d been scoring Adderall  from the ADD kids since sixth grade. She was going to kick it last summer, before freshman year, but then she made varsity cheer at Hollywood High and that was pretty much the end of that.

He’d worn a pink polo shirt on the first day of second grade, and a couple of kids started calling him Pink. Then Leslie Silverman told everyone it was because he ate 10 Pink’s chili dogs every day, and that was why he was so fat. He didn’t even like Pink’s chili dogs, but that didn’t matter. Everybody called him Pink now, except his sister, who called him Tiny. Just to be a bitch.

It was Tuesday. Pink sat down to lunch at a far table, unpacking a PB& J, apple, and bag of Fritos. He’d had a PB&J at recess and there was a sleeve of Oreos and another bag of chips in his backpack, but he knew better than to eat everything at once, especially at school. Halfway through his sandwich there was an eruption of laughter from the other side of the quad; a few minutes later, Sam, a 4^th grader, took a seat across the table. His real name was Osama, so of course he went by Sam, but his accent was so thick you could barley understand him. He’d come over from Dubai only a few months ago. Sometimes Pink sat with him at lunch, or he with Pink, and sometimes the girl who was held back two years in a row would join them, but it was generally a pretty quiet affair. Sam was eating some kind of weird meat mixed with rice and didn’t look up.

His mom told everyone Pink had a thyroid problem, but he didn’t know what a thyroid was. The last time he’d been to the doctor, the doctor told his mom something about if he didn’t lose weight he’d probably get diabetes, which has something to do with sugar and can make you blind.  That set his mom off, yelling at the doctor about how good a parent she was and not to judge her. Pink wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but he hadn’t been to a doctor since.

After school, Pink got off the bus two stops early, rounded the corner onto Laurel Canyon, and walked to Famous Cupcakes. If there was a bunch of photographers out front you knew one of the Kardashians was inside. Kids said Sprinkles was better and that people only went to Famous because the Kardashians owned it, but Pink liked Famous. He bought four cupcakes –strawberry for his mom and sister, chocolate coconut for him and Steve. And a large soda. It was a long walk home.

By the time he turned onto his street, the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat, dripping from beneath his backpack. It ran from his neck and down his temples. It slicked his fingers, making it hard to hold the box in front of him. But it was worth it.

He dropped his backpack by the door and set the box on the island in the kitchen. It was quiet. He grabbed another soda from the fridge and found his sister upstairs, in her bathroom, putting on some makeup.

“Where’ve you been?” she said when she noticed him standing there. She continued before he could answer. “Steve got stuck in some mammoth production meeting that’s supposed to go crazy late, and mom had go show some houses to somebody. Somebody important – a Clipper – something like that. She’s taking him to dinner after.”

“Tonight?” Pink asked.

“No, last night. Don’t be stupid. I mean, she got the call at like, four. You know how they are. They make you do shit at all hours just because they can. That’s why I’m going to be famous,” she said, blotting her lipstick and dropping the tissue in the basket, “so I don’t have to work for famous people.”

She slipped past him and walked into their mom’s bedroom. Pink followed. She was in the bathroom again, at the sink, spritzing perfume on her neck.

“Where are you going?” Pink asked.

“I have to go study.”

She disappeared into the closet and emerged holding a pair of red high heels. “Don’t tell mom I wore these,” she said as she passed him again.

She slipped on the heels at the bottom of the stairs and opened the door. Pink followed her out. A guy in a letterman’s jacket was sitting in a white Mercedes in the driveway, engine running.

“Don’t worry, Tiny. I’ll be back before Mom is. There’s pizzas in the freezer.”

She slid into the passenger seat, giggled, and was gone.

Pink flipped through the channels. Nothing good. He licked the crumbs from his fingers and dropped the last wrapper into the empty box next to him on the couch. He flipped a little more and turned it off. It was almost 10; his sister would probably be home soon and yell at him for still being up. He picked up the ribbon he’d won at the science fair earlier that day. Honorable Mention. He’d never won a ribbon before, but suddenly Honorable Mention didn’t seem all that great. He dropped it into the box too, closed the lid.

He looked at his reflection in the dark of the TV screen.

A tear rolled slowly, cutting through a streak of pink frosting on his cheek.

she has been dreaming about them since morning.

The creaminess, the colour, all of it had appealed to her when she saw her mother baking them.

The one that she especially wanted to have was the yellow one – she felt like it had been made only for her. And those lil sprinkles – they would tickle her palate as she bit into the cupcake. All the glorious flavours of the cake – the softness, the creaminess …..ooooh..she could not wait to get home

Her train trundled out of Vashi station. Chug chug, chug chug – soothing sounds.

She got ready to stand at the door to feel of the cool breeze wafting its way from the creek. The breeze started to gather momentum – became a wind as the train almost hit the bridge on the creek.

She was still thinking about the cupcakes when the train derailed – a slow motion shot in progress – with the first bogies hitting the creek headfirst…

It was a lovely summer day.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  The scent of lilac perfumed the fresh morning air.  The parish neighborhood of St. Francis of Assisi hummed with activity.  Home owners tended their lawns with gentle loving care.  Children played and ran amuck in the school yard letting out squeals of joy and happiness.

On the steps of St. Francis of Assisi Church, there sat a homeless man named Tim, dressed in rags, sobbing his heart out.  He was a sight for sore eyes.

Father Kelly, an elderly man with a slight stoop, dressed in Franciscan friar robes, approached the wretched soul with humility and kindness.  He had heard the poor man’s wailings from the rectory.

“Can I help you, son?”

“Buzz off!  I aint done wrong.”  Tim cried.

“Would you like to come inside for a cup of coffee and something to eat?   The priest gently spoke his words filled with Christ’s undying love.

“Fuck your coffee.  Fuck your food.  Just leave me alone.  You needed shit about me.  I’ll bugger off soon.”

“As you wish.”  The priest walked away in silence.

Tim thought,   “What the hell am I doing here!”   He stood up, and paced up and down the perimeter of the church.  He hit his head with his clenched fists.

“I bloody remember.”  He shouted. “I want forgiveness.”

He had damned the church and its teachings, which insisted on exemplary Christian behavior.  He sighed deeply.  He blew his nose with his fingers, the snot flying into the air and landing on the road.

“It’s not bloody fair!  I aint good!  The psychosis got in the way!  God, do you hear me?” He shouted.

Across the street from the church, a small crowd of people had gathered and watched Tim’s antics.

He was tired of his friggin life, of the hospitalizations, of the psychotropic drugs, and the talk therapy.  He wished never to have been born.  He gazed at the church doors.  He wanted to enter, to prostrate himself before the cross, before Jesus, the messiah of the world, and confess his ghastly sins but he couldn’t do it.  Inertia had set in.  Gripped by anger, he pummeled his fists against the brick and mortar of the church’s facade.  His hands bled red.  He was oblivious to his pain.

Crying, he pressed his bleeding hands together and fell to his knees.

He shouted.  “God help me!”  He fell into a daze and collapsed to the ground.

In the distance, the siren of a police car could be heard.   Two officers approached and stood over Tim.  They prodded him with their feet.

One of the officers shouted, ”Get up you homeless piece of scum!”

When Tim opened his eyes and saw the two police officers standing over him, he cried, “Don’t taser me bro.  I’ll get up.”

He tried to pick himself up, stumbled, and hit the ground.

An ambulance soon arrived and carted him to the psychiatric ward of the local hospital.

Posts on this Prompt:

Jones was an unsure man. Throughout his short life he was always in two minds about everything. Did he choose the right career? Did he choose the right wife? Were the kids growing up right? Were they really his kids?

But none of that mattered anymore. His career was long over. The kids were already dead. His wife, he shot her in the head point blank with his double barrel pump-action shotgun. Nothing mattered anymore, because for once in his life he was sure, that the world as he knew it had come to an end.

All the efforts by the government to stop the virus outbreak had gone kaput. He had pleaded and pleaded to the government, not to use gunpowder based explosives on them, it’ll only aid in the virus to spread at a faster rate. But they wouldn’t listen. After all, he had created the virus in the first place, so he knew best. The fact that he led to the outbreak didn’t help much with his credibility. For once know one could blame Microsoft, they did ask him 5 times ‘Do you really want to run the unauthorized program’ and he did. Curios minds, these scientists.

He loved those zombie movies, for he knew he could make them come alive. He also knew that reality would be much more brutal than what the movies showed. He was right.

He was now probably the only human left who was unexposed to the virus, thanks to the handy gas mask in his laboratory and the gun from the dead security guard. But now, the gas was running out. His family was dead. He had nothing left to live for.

So he loaded his gun and dashed out of his home, and ran down the street, determined to take down as many of those zombies as he could. He didn’t encounter anyone for a couple of blocks and saw McDonalds was open. Burgers just lying there. He thought why not eat a couple before he went down fighting. He realized the flaw in his plan as soon as he opened the glass lid of his gass mask to eat the burgers. “Oh Shit!” he thought out loud, as he began to turn a zombie himself. These burgers would kill you, his wife always dead. Who thought, she’d turn out to be the smart one. As his skin started to show blisters he heard some one call out his name – “Jones! Jones! Dr. Jones wake up now! Your wife is here to see you…”