Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Kealan Patrick Burke
- Language: English
- Genre: Two-Hour Literature & Fiction Short Reads
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
The Scream
When the child started screaming, Phil Pendleton had his arms loaded with
chocolate bars and his girlfriend cooing in his ear. Later he would think of
the moment prior to that klaxon-like intrusion as one of utter bliss, a rare
occasion in which his customary concerns were in absentia.
It was a Saturday, so he was off work and had woken up pleasurably
late after a night of equally pleasurable lovemaking. And while he had
briefly considered doing some much-delayed yardwork today (if only to
stave off the disapproving looks of his neighbors), Lori had convinced him
to actually take the day off and join her in doing nothing more taxing than
lounging before the TV with a veritable stockpile of chocolate. As the
invitation had been extended while she stood in the bathroom doorway
wearing nothing but her pink silk underwear, and with the memory of her
uncharacteristic sexual abandon still fresh in his mind, he hadn’t needed to
be asked twice.
His mission was a simple one: procure as much chocolate as possible
and return home, a task which saw him standing in the candy aisle at
Walmart, Lori doling out her requests over the phone in between bouts of
sexual innuendo as he tried to focus on the overwhelming selection on the
shelves before him.
Yes, he would have said the day was a fine one indeed.
Then the scream had come, so abrupt and so unexpected, Phil’s whole
body jerked as if someone had punched him between the shoulder blades.
Jamie Lee Curtis had screamed like that in Halloween. Loons did too. A
half dozen or so chocolate bars rained from the cradle of his arm to the
floor, smacking against his feet. Only his quick reflexes kept his cell phone
from joining it. This last was a relief. As Lori was so fond of reminding
him, he’d had to replace the phone twice this year already due to natural
clumsiness.
“What in God’s name was that? The fire alarm?” Lori asked. In the
fright, the phone had slipped down to his cheek. Only luck had kept it
pinned there. Now, hands unexpectedly free of candy, he grabbed it and put
it back to his ear.
“No. Someone’s kid.” As he said this last, he looked to his right, to
the source of the sound.
There were a half dozen or so shoppers wandering the aisle. Many of
them were making concentrated efforts not to look at the thin woman
standing midway down the aisle, or the towheaded child currently tugging
at the hem of her unseasonably heavy coat. On the faces of the shoppers,
Phil saw his own emotions reflected back at him: irritation, pity, and relief.
Irritation at the obnoxious introduction of such a hostile and
unwelcome sound into the general lazy-Saturday ambience of the store.
Pity at the sight of the browbeaten woman forced to accept
responsibility for her child’s misbehavior
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