Fading

The room was silent as she flipped through the pages. Too fast. There was no way she was actually reading the story in full, let alone absorbing the text. Flip, flip, flip. Still flipping.

“What is it?” She asked, glancing over her glasses. One eyebrow raised.

“Nothing. It’s just that--“

“Just that what?”

“It’s just that...you aren’t reading the pages. I see a lot of flipping, but not a lot of reading.”

She sighed. “And your point is?”
“Well, my point is I brought this here for you to read. To like, take in, ya’know?”

Her brow furrowed. Her lips pressed together tightly, as if stifling a scream. “Well, if you really want my honest opinion…”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well,” she continued, “if you really want my honest opinion, I have to say it’s total garbage.”

“What do you mean? You haven’t even--“

“Total garbage,” she repeated.

A few silent moments passed.

So….now what do I do? I spent all morning writing these.

Her eyes widened. “All morning? That’s it? Well no wonder it sucks.”

She had a point.  

She let out a long exhale and started. “Listen, it’s only because I love you that I’m hard on you. Do you want to be a famous horror author like your hero Steve King? Then put some f*****g effort into your prose.”

Jaw dropped. “It’s Stephen King, Jess. Stephen.”

“I don’t care how you say his name. He isn’t very good anyway.”

Eyes bulging. Face reddening. Going to faint. Going to faint.

“Are you okay?”

Fading fast. Fading fast. “Examples please.”

“Well, for example: 'He strolled through the misty graveyard searching for his lost monkey’s paw'. All of that is crap. A monkey’s paw? Where are you going with this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Well, yes it is obvious. That’s the problem. There’s zero style to the prose. There’s no sense of suspense. There’s just nothing. It’s all garbage.”

“I have to go lie down now.”

Wait for applause.

He lowered the book and rested it on his lap, smiling. He looked around at the empty bookstore/café/Laundromat. The woman standing behind the counter, near the cash register looked up from her phone. "Ya done yet? You said one hour. I got a break coming up, and I gotta lock the place up."

"Yeah, I'm done."