Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash
(This flash is based on last week’s Writing Exercise: Trope Writing Prompts (6/5/2025).)
“What are you watching?” Brune asked, jumping over the back of the couch to land in the cushion area on the other side from me. I heard what was left of the springs complain. He wasn’t the worst of the offenders, but he did contribute to the wrecked state of most of the flat’s furniture. Three-bedrooms and five guys, all CIS except for me which meant half the time the other renters weren’t in residence, going hunting or hanging out with their most recent capture-of-the-heart in less crowded conditions, and the other half the time they brought the chicks over, I think in a half-hearted attempt to get them to cook or clean.
I missed Dave. His OCD kept the place dusted.
Anyway, I clicked to the next channel on the cable rotation. “Haven’t decided yet.” I had been watching a cooking show, but admitting that would mean either I (1) would have to cook the dish or (2) get teased for being gay and into girl things. Not something I could handle today. Between the bio-lab from University and the stocking at the dead-end job, I operated in the negative fucks. My brain was leaking out my ears from everything I had stuffed into it at school this afternoon, after a mind-numbing morning of reorganizing the paper products for my big-box store employer so people would not be able to find their toilet paper immediately and spend more time in the store looking around and picking things they didn’t need up, like unicorn-themed napkins on the end-caps. Mice were showing on the screen in a lab setting; probably some sort of news story about cancer or a new medical finding.
I clicked the channel. I had dealt with mice for three hours today, I’m not spending downtime with them. The next channel showed a carpet of mice pouring down a street. Looked like downtown. One of the Peachtrees. But, hey, we were Atlanta, the Hollywood of the south. Everyone filmed downtown. As much as I like horror, no mice for me today.
The next channel was Fox News. Ugh, the reporter had mice in the background screen. I guess that medical news is a big thing. *Click*
Another news channel. They were clustered in our cable in the 40s. There was a scroll across the bottom of “Breaking News” and talking heads. Something, something about a lab accident and infection. Oh, mice, never mind.
I was about to click again when Brune dived across the couch and grabbed the remote control.
“Dude, what the hell?” I complained.
(words 428; first published 6/11/2025)