Double Bonus Fiction: Like two BFFs but totally different

Two prompts yield two different stories.

Last week, I was on a week-long business trip to the Midwest for the regular job. I was inundated with in-depth information and was ready to escape into my fictional mind. Not only did I write around 4,000 words on my upcoming crime noir novella serial that begins releasing in January, but I also participated in a Flash Fiction Battle and took a prompt from the Fictionistas to create another story. Both are completely different, and I hope you enjoy. Feel free to share which one you enjoyed more!

father and teen daughter washing a car

Fictionistas Prompt Party: The Car Wash

Last week,

Fictionistas

hosted an online prompt party. I couldn’t make the party, but I took the prompt and created a story that has some “Sem-oir” (semi memoir) elements to it. Thanks again to

Nicole Rivera

and

Jackie Dana

for hosting this monthly get together.

Write a story about a character who has had an epiphany while doing a mundane, everyday task. Perhaps somebody sweeping leaves from their driveway stops to look at the pile of leaves being formed on the lawn and sees only the sterile, perfect existence of their life, resolving to cut loose and let both the leaves and themselves be taken by the wind.

By Vince Wetzel

“Hey, before you leave, you’ve got to come wash the cars with me,” I said.

Her response to this request was only a look. She had perfected it, closing her eyelids just as her eyes began to roll across her face. It was a look of disdain, frustration, and patronization rolled into one.

“Dad, it’s too hot, plus Jon will pick me up at any moment.”

“Then he can wait or help us finish,” I said. I’m doing you a favor just by helping you out.”

“Can’t I just take them to the gas station and run it through the machine? It’s cheap, and it does a better job.”

I shook my head. The kids these days. They had no clue about their responsibilities and that it was not about the money, but rather the responsibilities and the value of hard work. They only cared about moving on to the next pleasure. I had to put my foot down. I wasn’t going to send off my daughter to college, one I was paying for, with the idea that she prioritized herself over the obligations to others.

“No, you’re going to wash these cars, young lady,” I was firm. I was pissing her off. And I was sure my wife Sofia would let me have it after Stephanie had left with Jon. “End of discussion.”

“So unfair,” Stephanie said under her breath as she went to her room to change into grubbies. I had won the battle but knew I was losing the war. When she left for college, it would be nearly impossible to hold her chores over her. She’d come back and be a guest, and her mother and I would be beholden to her every whim: meals, nights out with friends, boyfriends.

I shook it off and put the Honda in place for the wash. With California in a constant drought, I used the two-bucket method. Use one bucket to rinse, one bucket to wash, and then refill the first bucket for another rinse. It saved a lot of water. Even better than the recycled water gas station car washes used these days. Plus, there was added value in a personal car wash. There was a connection to the car, a way to be a part of its care and appreciate the car from every angle of its design. For me, washing a vehicle made the relationship a partnership, instead of the driver just using it for transportation.

“OK, let’s get this over with,” Stephanie said, walking out of the garage. She wasn’t dressed to wash the car; she was dressed to tease Jon when he arrived while she washed it. She was wearing a white T-shirt tied in a knot and exposing her waist, cut-off jean shorts, and hair in an updo. I should’ve told her to change, but just having her here was a win. I let it go.

Our routine went like this: I’d begin by rinsing the car with one sponge and bucket. She’d follow with soapy water. I’d come back with the second rinse bucket, and she’d finish with a towel to dry off the car. We’d perfected it over eight years of washing cars together.

I rinsed the door and window, remembering the first time I taught her my system. She was eight, so excited to be helping me as grown up as washing the car. She spent too much time on the wheels while I moved through the steps, but it brought a smile to my face that she took an interest.

I used the opportunity to wash the car to ask about her school, her theater classes, and her friends to understand her, her dreams, and her struggles, and I sometimes offered her advice. I thought it was perfect. The focus was on the car, not on emotion, and the conversation flowed as we weren’t attached to the task of talking as much as we were to wash the cars.

“What are you and Jon up to today?”

“We’re going to Rachel’s house. It’s the last time my friends will be together before we go to college. One last blowout, you know?”

I nodded, filling up my rinse bucket for my second rinse. I watched my daughter concentrate on the suds. She was focused on the task and the future, one filled with possibility and the future, away from the garage and our little ritual. As I began to rinse off the suds, I realized this was our last blowout. Stephanie was moving toward her own renewal, and I was left behind.

From now on, I’d be washing the car alone. In the winter, I’d take it to the car wash. It would take me twice as long in the summer to clean these cars. I would be alone, my little girl foraging her own path, not dictated by me, her mother, or our plans for her.

Jon showed as she grabbed a towel to dry, breaking our trance in the car. This wasn’t our activity anymore; it would be the last time we’d have this moment again. We both sensed it. When Jon grabbed a towel, she shook him off, saying she didn’t want him to get wet. But when I looked up, she shot me a glance, and I knew she had realized the significance.

When we were finished, she turned to walk back through the garage and change back into her clothes.

“Stephanie,” I called to her. She turned, her smile as bright as the day she finished cleaning that wheel. “Thank you.”

She turned back to me, wrapping her wet arms around my neck, hugged me, and kissed my cheek.

“No, Dad,” she said. “Thank you.”

I managed to hold it together until she and Jon went inside. Then I wept.

Flash Fiction Battle: The Bubble

On Sunday, November 17, I participated in a Flash Fiction Battle. Hosted by Andrew Robert Colom on his Substack, I was pitted against S M Garratt (his story) from the UK. I was given a prompt at 11 a.m. and expected to write 500 words by 2 p.m. Here is the result of the prompt:

France year 2134, heatwave, the last block of ice

By Vince Wetzel

The pain shot through my tooth and gum, and I let out a scream. But I didn't even hear myself against the cacophony of sounds from the World Cup in France.

My hand went to my mouth. For centuries, we'd been warned about the damage ice blocks, or cubes as they were called years ago, could inflict on your teeth and gums when you chewed on them. But what else was I going to do? It was the last one in the cup, and I wouldn't let it melt.

I was having an old-style Pepsi Cola, just like my grandfather and I had when I was a kid. He had them with his grandfather. Back then, Pepsi was even unhealthier. You could use the stuff to clean a "car" battery. But now, it was a synthetic compound derived from taro, soy, and lima beans.

The pain wasn't going away, but I wouldn't let that or the fact that France was in the middle of a heatwave distract me. We were only in the twelfth minute of the match between Panama and the United States, the country of my grandfather and his grandfather.

International football was my passion, and I'd been looking forward to participating. I've felt isolated all my life, unable to meet anyone interesting or have meaningful interactions. But here, I felt alive for the first time. I was a part of a collective fanbase, something greater than myself. A shot flew just over the goal, eliciting groans from the crowd. My tooth still hurt, and I wondered if I would need to leave early to fix it. I hoped not. I was having so much fun.

Davis Devine lined up for a corner kick. He raised his hand and kicked the ball toward the goal. Everything went black.

I groaned.

The Corporation must have detected that my emotional algorithm was out of my typical spectrum and cut my dopamine and serotonin supply fed to me through my immersive virtual reality bubble. I should have taken more time to program the bubble to mask my pleasure in watching this match. But I desperately wanted to see the World Cup my grandfather attended fifty years ago in 2084. I needed my fix now. I needed to see life before the Corporation annexed all countries and enslaved humans to service its AI and algorithm.

The bubble came to life again but didn't show the World Cup. Instead, I was at my workstation, beginning my next shift, monitoring levels of Oxytocin that indicated any unlawful emotional empathy that could lead to unauthorized love or relationships.

Before starting work, I rubbed my mouth one more time. I savored it. It was my only indication I was alive.