Another Short Story

Here's another story I'm trying out: The man waited, for love.

At first glance it's quite boring, yes?  Waiting is hardly interesting.  But, for love?  Well that's intriguing.  Was he hoping love would find him, sitting patiently and knowingly expecting it's arrival within the hour?  Or is it more, he was in this dreadfully boring situation in the first place, because he promised love he would.

Either way, I was still waiting.  It has been some time since someone played the keep me waiting game.  But this boy could play.  Luckily I've an air of nonchalance that infuriates people who want me to get angry about waiting.  It doesn't make things happen faster, but it does make them mad.

Then I met with Bruno and now I'm off to... What's that?  You want more details on how the meeting went?  Well, I suppose I could humor you.

Bruno's office looked much the way you'd expect a mass murderer's office to look.  Large picture of himself on the wall in the old style.  Very large comfortable chair on his side of the desk, uncomfortable folding chair on your side.  Thug standing in the shadows of the corner of the room.  Sun blocked out, you know.

Not fully knowing why I was there, I opened with a "Well, let us get down to business then, shall we?"  Hoping of course, that Bruno would fill in the missing parts of my understanding.

He responded in his own way, "Well yes, Mr. Penterbottom.  You have until Friday.  If I am still in want of it by Friday, I will break your legs."

As if I wasn't quite sure what he meant with his subtle implication there, he brought in some poor schlup and had his legs broken by the shadowy thug.  Okay, not Bruno's legs to be clear, but the poor schlup's legs rather.  Again, I'm not quite sure on the etiquette of breaking someone's knees.  I feel the thug went a little over board with insulting the schlup's mother and kicking him in the ribs after the fact.

"Any questions?" Bruno intoned.

"What do you mean 'break my legs?'"  I'll admit, that wasn't, in hindsight, a good question to ask.  Nor was it wise to imitate his accent and put one of his cigars in my mouth.  Shadowy quickly broke two of my fingers.  Two fingers I was rather fond of, the pinky and the ring.

"Like that, only lower." Bruno responded, and then turned to his desk in a way that said our conversation has ended.  I resisted, though it was difficult, explaining that no matter how low I was to the ground when he broke my fingers, that would not be like breaking my legs.  I did not however, resist leaving his office quite quickly, nor did I resist looking deeply hurt at Shadowy.  He would not be getting invitations to any of my holiday parties.

Another story to leave you with: Splints on a Shoestring Budget.