Flash fiction - The Crossword

Morning. Another long break I know, but this morning all my work is done and I have a break at home alone to get a story out. So I've linked up with the lovely folks at Studio 30+ again. I used the prompt humiliating. 

The Crossword

It was still humiliating, Derrick thought, as he stepped out of the tabac. For over thirty-five years he had made this town his home. The butcher, the grocer, the laundry lady, even the mayor accepted his well learnt and practised French with graciousness and without sarcasm. And yet every morning, in the simplest of exchanges over a packet of cigarettes and a newspaper, the man in the tabac replied in English, as crisp and smooth as a tennis lawn.

                Derrick walked across the square to his favourite café. Inside the smell of freshly ground coffee and the remnants of last night’s menu greeted him. He took a seat by the window. Jean Pierre waved at him from behind the bar. Breakfast would be on its way shortly.

                He opened the paper. Train strikes planned over the long weekend. Cars stolen by pretend hitchhikers in the south. A new production of Hamlet touring. Laws to be changed regarding dog ownership. He turned to the crossword and got to work.

                His pencil was nibbled, was tapped. He scribbled. It was a short, stubby, well-worn and well-travelled pencil. This was its 1000 crossword. He should savour it. Derrick leaned back, stretched out his legs, sipping his coffee and pondering number 19 down.

                Out in the square delivery vans beeped to the shop owners and tardy teenagers flopped past wanting any distraction to stop them from going to school. Derrick remembered what it was like and smiled. He licked croissant crumbs from his mouth and signalled for another.

                The door opened as Derrick was filling in 19 down. He listened to the exchange at the bar and the voice made him look over. It was the man from the tabac. He had never seen him in here. He put down his pencil and listened. His pencil rolled off the paper and onto the floor.

                The tabac owner’s daughter was seeing the café owner’s son and he wasn’t happy about how late they were staying out. They needed to agree for them to both be home by 11 each night. Jean Pierre shrugged, but agreed. The tabac owner pressed him, wanting him to agree again. Jean Pierre did so. The tabac owner sighed, thanked him and turned to leave. He noticed Derrick.

                “Hello,” he said briskly as if he was going to pass, but he stopped at Derrick’s table and looked down at it. “Oh. You do the crossword I see?” He stared at the paper, scrutinising Derrick’s answers.

                Derrick said nothing and watched him.

                The man from the tabac stepped back and looked at him. “I see you speak French then. How very bizarre I never knew!” His tight face slipped open for a second with a smile. “Au revoir Monsieur.” He turned and left the café.

                Derrick sat, stunned. He let the feeling wash over him and he soaked up his little win. The man from the tabac finally understood. Tomorrow morning would be different. This deserved a little celebration. He ordered a cognac with another coffee.

                Back to the crossword.

                He searched and searched, but he never found his pencil. 

Words

I'm getting this post up today even though I posted for another site already. Tomorrow I fly back to my native island for a wedding so am going to be technologically mute for a couple of days. So, this prompt is from the folks at Studio30 Plus. The word is... WORD.

This is a poem I wrote in 2009 when the English language reached its one millionth word. I was very excited in the build-up as newspapers and linguists around the world placed bets on what that pinnacle official word would be. Then it came. The 1,000,000th word in the English language was...

WEB 2.0. 

I wanted to vomit. That's not even a word.

So I wrote this in response and I share it with you today.

Web Two Point Zero

How did we get here
From there?
From one word to a million.
How we say this and that
Has changed,
Gone are the rules in this word game
So that nothing ever remains the
Same.

Technology discovers
And wakes the dictionary.
It opens and finds a space,
As the world explores
And pours in more
So out of our mouths
It becomes commonplace.

When the grandfather cradles
A baby just born
He knows in another century
His meaning will have torn;
But that this little miracle
Will understand enough to say
Those words he knew
In a different way.
He feels sad how changes speak
Across years and countries
As new senses they seek:
Ones he will not realise,
Words he will not say,
Meanings he will never meet.

Years later, after a million more
His great great granddaughter listens, abhors,
To the children in their virtual world
As they compurite and intereed
And never ink or paper need.
She shakes her head and reaches for
The secret in her bureau drawer:
Those golden letters, they never faded,
Neither his words inside those pages.
She reads and delights in joined letters,
Painstaking care to get it right
And no disgusting number in sight.
So two remains two and too as well
Not like now, she’ll sadly tell
Her own grandchildren and she will let them see
Her great great grandfather’s life-long diary.

First one was born because it was the first
Words followed from a naming thirst
And to a million we have now arrived
The most amount of meaning ever survived.
But before we drop our heads to charge on,
To pass another inevitable million
We must remember words are more than letters strung
And they started with a meaningful 
One.

To read other writes on the prompt WORD or the other of this week's prompts, SICK visit:

The news article when, for some, this language crossed that million word barrier:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8092549.stm