Thanks -- I think I'm a little too Bob Like Carrots about my surgery, but I was totally blocked on what to write for this drabble, when it suddenly popped into my mind -- I was in that lying-down-with-*everyone*-standing situation for 6 weeks. Perfect drabble fodder.

And another....

****

"Give me 5 more minutes, and I'll have the oil filter changed for you," the voice drifted up from beneath the Honda.

"That’s...really fast, isn't it?"

"Not really. Well, I don't know, actually, anymore. I started changing the oil in my Dad's car when I was 14, and after 20 years, the process is completely ingrained."

"I didn't realize you were such a grease monkey."

"Oh, please! An oil change is nothing -- it's not like I'm rebuilding the transmission!"

"Can you do that?"

A pause, and then, "Well, yeah."

"You're just trying to impress me now, aren't you?"

In response, she slid out from under the car and grinned up at her boyfriend.

Ha!

I never did do a Knots. I'll probably still do it later and just put it in my own LJ.

Who Stands, Who Lies?

She was so beautiful, her silhouette etched in dawnlight as she stood naked at the dirty window. His heart turned over in his chest, and though he knew she found such declarations distasteful, he was compelled to state the emotion he still felt for her, or burst. "I love you."

She felt his words, tiny barbed arrows against her psyche, and she didn't turn to see him lying in her bed, his face toward her as a flower toward the sun, yearning for her touch, her nearness, an answering softening toward him. "I love you too," she lied.

Tep, I liked both of yours. Beverly, that was hot. Of course, reading about linoleum makes me...well, never mind.

Brandy, half full. Scotch, the dregs of an old single malt; that one was hidden beneath some dirty clothes.

She limps around his house, stooping painfully on her injured legs. There's evidence of stupidity, of addiction, of self-destruction and need, all over the place, as if a man with multiple kidney transplants and a heroin habit needs hard alcohol on top of it.

Eventually she stops beside the bed, where he's curled up and shivering. She stands above him, brandishing the last bottle like a billyclub.

"Next one of these I find," she tells him, "I break over your skull."

OK, I've only written the second darkest now. Or third, maybe, with ita's.

You know, I've just realised; I don't think I've written a fictional one since the very first week? Everything else has been autobiographical.

Mine sort of straddle the line...

OH! And since I'm in the writing thread, I had lunch with my COMPLETELY AMAZING editor today. And I have, in my hot little hand, the Minotaur fall catalogue, and "Famous Flower" has its own page, and the cover, and it's superb. Same theme was "Weaver"'s, but instead of the page being lifted to reveal the haunted building in the lower right, this one looks like a jagged tear, to reveal the theatre in the lower left.