Here is the second prompt in my holiday series. Enjoy!
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Prompt: Two men meet at a corner.
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The man was a six foot boulder. He was dark skinned and lightly wrinkled around his full lips. He wore a black knit beanie with several strands of yarn pulled free. The gray sweat outfit he wore struggled to contain the his body, but exposed the coarse black hair on the bottom of his stomach.
The man’s opposite sat beside him: a small, bent over skeleton wrapped in a white pull-over sweater and torn blue jeans. His skin yellowed around the face and brown splotches pocketed his hands. He was bald except for thin tufts of fur, stuck on above his ears, and he tucked in his lips like a man with no teeth.
The two men reclined atop a low cement wall in front of the local Shop N’ Save, one with his large paws together over his massive gut, the other with his hands on his knees, trembling like a chihuahua. One gazed upon the passing world before him in quiet contemplation, the other flickered his eyes between his mate’s face, and where his mate gazed.
“Hey, what are you looking at anyway?” The skeleton asked.
“The world has gone to shit,” the boulder said.
“Do you have a cigarette?”
“No. But it has gone to shit.”
“Sure has.”
“You know, I’m serious about that.”
“How do you tell the good people from the bad ones?”
“Exactly! You can’t tell with kids now adays. Kids have all their computers and video games and they don’t need to work. That’s what it’s about.”
“Say it!”
The boulder got to his feet. “But who can blame the kids? They only know what their parents taught them, and God knows they don’t have it right!”
“God knows, God hates the kids today.”
“What? No. Their parents, the people running the country, they don’t understand what’s important anymore. They’ve forgotten how to love.”
“Amen! Do you have a cigarette?”
The boulder opened his mouth to speak, but sat down instead. “You know I don’t have no damn cigarette man.”
The sound of a coin dropped in a hollow cup made the men look up. A young woman in a white peacoat and short dark hair smiled back at them as she passed. “Merry Christmas,” she said.
“Thank you ma’am,” the skeleton said, leaning down to scoop up the old coffee cup from the sidewalk and examine the loot.
“Most gracious of you ma’am,” the boulder called after to her, then to the skeleton: “How much did she drop?”
The skeleton held the silver coin out in front of his face like a precious jewlel and smacked his loose lips. “A quarter!”
“A damn quarter? The world has gone to shit.”
“I’ll give you twenty-five cents for a cigarette.”
