Strategy: Punt and Run

/ Liz H

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your own creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “CAROUSEL”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories

She’d retreated to the kitchen to escape the cacophony of what had become weekly shouts and belches that took over the living room, to get herself together and decide the next big thing she needed to do.

She would start with something easy: bake a sourdough loaf, with its usual white-whole wheat mix, and add dried fruit and nuts, with a scattering of spices of indeterminate mixture; nothing calmed her like creating something with her hands that no one had ever tasted before (not that these over-enthused sports nuts her husband had gathered would be able to appreciate the craft that brought her calm).

Hours passed, a cycle of rising and folding, rising and folding, until she got to the final step, where she spun the Lazy Susan filled with cinnamon and nutmeg, cardamom and cloves, a touch of cayenne, or perhaps dried lemon peel and thyme was the way to go, and although she gazed at the carousel of flavor before her, she failed to feel the confirmatory calm that always came when she chose the right recipe for the particular situation.

At that moment, a shout came from the living room (Woman, bring us more snacks and where’s my beer?!),  and she grimaced, then grinned as her mind fixed on the rat poison under the kitchen sink; forget the fruit and nuts, and instead, throw together garlic and chopped onions, cayenne and basil and a fistful of ghost peppers, add just enough rat poison to give it that extra death punch, and with mozzarella melted over the top in the last 15 minutes of baking, they wouldn’t suspect a thing.

She’d finally get some peace and quiet, and wouldn’t even have to clean the house before she bugged out of there.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2023)

31 thoughts on “Strategy: Punt and Run”

  9. I love how an innocent prompt like Carousel brought forth the dark side of ink!
    Yes!!
    This is the third dark one I am reading…and the link isn’t open yet!

    As you say Liz… Mwahahaha!!

    Liked by 1 person

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