Randomocity

One Hundred Fiction Prompts by aranoki. One hundred words. I like it, I faved it.

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Last Christmas, we bought ourselves a Keurig. I was initially skeptical, but it took about two days to convince me this was the greatest thing ever (I've got a new greatest thing ever about once a week, which I think is a lucky trait to have). Since that fateful Christmas morning when we unwrapped it (er, yes, we bought it for ourselves and then wrapped it...), we haven't bought a coffee elsewhere. No more Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Tim Horton's, or even the dreaded emergency stop at 7-11. I'd say that Keurig has paid for itself, considering how much it's saved us.

We do love it, but trying new coffee can be a pain. We found our very favorite ever, Sumatra Gold, and they discontinued it (to be replaced by Timothy's Sumatran Reserve, which is not nearly as good). And there have been a few other hits and misses.

The springtime-only flavor, Island Coconut: fucking delicious. Laugh all you like, but I'm at Disney's Carribean Beach Resort every time I brew it. Could have that forever. I love every cup. But now it's summer, and they've replaced it with blueberry and peach. Blueberry and peach coffees! No! We did find a close-out on Island Coconut, and we bought four boxes. But we're running out. *sigh*

Donut House Vanilla Iced coffee: Easily as good if not better than any iced coffee you can buy anywhere. I'm waiting for a mocha version. But in the meantime, this is delicious. Use a large cup, pack it with ice, and brew it on small. Fabulous.

Got a sampler pack of the new Wolfgang Puck line. So far, three samples, three big misses. I'm having the Creme Caramel right now. Not big on flavored coffees anyway, but this is lacking in flavor and strength... Bleh. No cream, no caramel, no repeat buy. The Breakfast in Bed: only if I woke up in a really bad cheap diner and had it served to me by a sour-faced waitress named Louanne after it'd been sitting for an hour. The Sorrento was the best so far. Brewing, it smelled exactly as if I'd walked into a Starbucks. On tasting, however, it lacked smoothness and was too strong for what it was supposed to be.

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I'm just catching up on the Art of Darkness blog. I enjoyed every post, but then... This.

Last year, my dad asked what I wanted for my birthday, which is in September. I asked for anything from Yankee Candle's Boney Bunch collection (see link above). It comes out in August for the Halloween holiday, and last year was its second year. My dad tried and tried, but couldn't find any anywhere. The shop employees told him that it's already a cult item, and it sells out fast. He then tried eBay, where pieces were going for at least double, if not triple their original selling price.

But it appears that the collection will launch again this August, complete with a big party. Expect it to sell out fast -- Yankee Candle does. They also say (sniff!) this will be the last year the collection will be made. Not because they don't have more ideas, but because they're chuffed it's become such a collector's item, and they'd like to end here. Sending the Boney Bunch into collector heaven (or hell, since prices will inevitably explode even further now).

I'm there on August 7th. Even if I can only afford one piece. I'M THERE.

You should be too. If you get a piece, post a pic and tell me.

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Also on the AoD blog, this quote:

Twilight’s like soccer. They run around for 2 hours, nobody scores, and its billion fans insist you just don’t understand.
--bretterlich

Heh.

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And lastly, The Boy Who Swam Faster Than Sharks! Because I can! Thanks, JS.

There was a boy who swam faster than sharks. By the age of four, he could outswim a box turtle in the pond in back of the Jorgensens'. By nine, he was regularly seen in the Dipsololly Creek -- called " the crick" by everybody around -- pacing silver trout. At sixteen, he kissed his momma on the cheek goodbye, and he set off for Australia, her tears a crick of their own behind him.

They talked funny in Australia, but he liked it, and he liked watching the girls and boys on the surfboards at the beach. But as cute as those girls were in their bathin' suits, he really only thought of one thing: sharks.

There were signs all over those Australian beaches, warning for jellyfish, warning for rip currents, and the signs he loved the best: sharks. Day and night, he practiced in the water, making himself a minor celebrity. Boys tried to surf faster than him, but the boy always bobbed up ahead of them on the waves, cruising the tunnels as if he'd been born there. Girls ran along the shore, tan legs long and glowing with the sand they kicked up, but he made it to the end and was waiting in the shallows when they showed up, panting and laughing.

Now, the sharks had heard of this boy. It could've been disaster for them, but they had a big think out in the open water, and they decided that it was only one boy, and they were millions of sharks. Just this once, they could live and let live. It was shark history. And then they all roared approval and tore up a hapless passing diver who'd strayed too far from his dive boat.

Meanwhile, the boy was having his own big think, in a bungalow beachside with a six-pack of Australian for beer and one of the girls who never raced him.

"Bets, what do you think we go for a midnight swim?"

Bets lifted the arm off the record, which had been sending Frank Sinatra crooning around the small bungalow and out the open windows into the warm night. She rolled on her side and frowned at him.

"Do you ever think about anything that isn't swimming?"

He thought about this. "Yep. I think about what I'm going to have for breakfast, and how a jellyfish could kill a man out of pain alone, and I think a lot about you in that yellow two-piece with the white ruffles on the top and the bottom."

Bets thought that the last part might've been just for her benefit, but then, she'd known the boy for two months, and she knew he never lied.

"Well, I'd rather not, if it's all the same."

He nodded. "It's not all the same, but that's okay." He stood up. "I'll be back in a bit." And he kissed her on the cheek, like he had his momma, and he went out the door in nothing but his smallest swimming trunks. Bets watched him walk on the beach, straight to the water, and dive in. She put Frank back on and thought about what they were going to have for breakfast and how she might love the boy more than anything else in the whole world.

The boy cut through the water like it was air, like he was a kite flying high, string snapped. He dipped and swirled and cut this way and that. When he came up to breathe, the moon was watching, and it sent down a hello. The boy felt like he was its own son, and he lay on his back and stared up at that moon, which could've been his father, seeing as he had never met the man.

And a shark, still hungry since it hadn't had more than a toe of the hapless diver, came swimming along and noticed the silhouette of the boy up above. And it thought about eating him then, wrapping its jaws right around the middle of the boy and shaking its big pyramid head until it was two boys. And then he'd eat both.

But as the boy turned again and swam, the shark realized just which exactly boy this was: it was the boy who swam faster than sharks. He'd sworn an oath, but that didn't mean he couldn't try to outswim the boy. Grinning three grins, the shark took off, hot on the boy's heels.

They swam around the whole bay and out into the ocean and back. The boy went deep; the shark went deep too. The boy razored across the surface; the shark's dorsal fin cut diamonds just behind him. Around and around, for a long time, boy and shark. And that shark never could catch up.

The boy climbed up on a rock at the edge of the bay. He could see the shark's fin making lazy circles, waiting for the boy to start again. He laughed. That shark could never outswim him. He had come to Australia to do one thing, and he had done it. He'd proved it to himself. And now, there was no reason to swim so fast anymore. He could go back to shore and call down Bets from the bungalow, and he'd maybe tell her that he loved her, there on the beach, and maybe she'd bring down a towel with her and wrap them both in it and he could tell her over and over how much he loved her. Maybe they'd move back to his home, and they'd build a little house by Dipsololly Creek, and he'd fish just by sitting on the banks and putting a line in the water, like everybody else.

Lost in his non-swimming dream, he didn't see the girl in the yellow two-piece walking across the sand. Bets, deciding to join him for his midnight swim. Frank was on hold, and the night was perfumed with flowers and salt, and she thought she might even challenge him to a race. She dropped a towel on the sand and waded in.

The shark knew right away that something had changed. Something new was in the water. It yanked around and headed for the vibration, snaking lower and lower, until its dorsal fin disappeared. And there, yes, there just ahead: plump legs, pushing through the water, leaving the sandy bottom, step by naked step.

The moon flashed bright in his eyes. The boy, startled, looked up and then around. Bets waved to him, far off. He started to wave back and then remembered: shark!

He stood and shouted for her to stop, to go back, but she misread his signals and just waved again before diving in, breasting the cool water like an arctic seal.

The shark loved seals. Vaguely, it was aware of something behind him, but it didn't matter. It was what was in front of it, delicious and slow, that mattered. It struck.

In the end, it was all the same. The boy who could swim faster than sharks was still that very same boy, and a shark will always be a shark, and that very same moon hangs in the same sky night after night. But when the boy walked out of the ocean that night, it was the very last time his feet touched water. He went home to his momma and sits in her living room, listening to old records, and she thinks he smells like salt and salt and salt, but she never says a word.