Annalisa stared down at the menu, a bead of sweat trickling down her temple in the dim light of late night. The other pages were just as crowded with options, all of them equally unappetizing, but she knew she had to make a decision, and knew that Rory, sitting opposite her at the patio table, was beetling his brows and tugging at his walrus-like mustache. As was his habit, he waited in judgment, ready to trumpet his corrections to whatever choice she might make.
But what was her alternative, when her family had made it clear to her that she had to marry this bloated, oversized self-made Monopoly Millionaire, so that they might gain access to his fortune and erase their equally oversized family debt?
The waiter stood nervously by, hands gripped behind his back; the tension was, in a word, palpable.
“I’ll have an iced latte to go, please,” she stated as she rose from the table, and without another word, without another glanced strolled to the midnight train for a one-way ticket going anywhere.
© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2021)
*The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “ALTERNATIVE”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories
Valley of the Trolls 
Good for her!
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Good for Annalisa; it’s not easy taking that midnight train. It’s difficult to believe that there were, and still are, families that sell their daughters (and children) into slavery.
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Ah marriage! Yeah, cynicism rules…
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It’s not all that bad. Don’t something like 50% of marriages not end in divorce?
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😂😂😂😂😂 (flips a coin)
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Go, Annalisa, we’re all rooting for you! Love this Liz. 🙂
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Thanks, Chris!
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Well done ✨🥂 try writing for reedsy challenge too 😉 I’m sure you’ll love the challenges out there.
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Thanks for the tip, Simon!
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You are welcome….
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Nice description: “self-made Monopoly Millionaire”. Debt is something to avoid.
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Thanks, Frank!
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Yes! That is the correct answer, Annalisa! I give her credit for even trying to see if she could go through with it. There are certain things that are not negotiable.
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Yes! I like her. Enough is enough. Iced latte to go is the perfect choice. Let her family solve its debt problems without involving her.
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