Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

An Unforgettable Meal

On December 3, the wind changed overnight, and it was winter.

“Winter?” the old man voice choked out, a wisp on the wind. “What is winter to an old hungry Russian?” He shrugged it off, gasping past the swirling crystals. He knew that his broken shack would be waiting for him, only a mile and yet a whole mile away. His shriveled daughter would be waiting for him with a loaf of wonderful Piroshki. The bread would be something, maybe not a whole loaf, but a few crumbs to nimble on. If he was lucky, a little sour cream could be scraped out of the bottom of the bucket. Just maybe… Anyways, he couldn’t complain; he knew many a folk that had no such feast. He pictured her waiting at the table, her torn, ruffled dress and weary face invisible behind a smile of the gods. With each footstep that he trudged through the blistering wind, the face grew clearer. Then he heard laughter; she was so near he could taste the cream on his lips and feel her smooth skin around his shoulders.

He felt the crumbs fall past his lips as the snow covered his starving corpse, and he gave in to the happy dream.

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