Frogs on Crack

Here's a snippet of a story I wrote today. It's all I wrote, and I don't really have anywhere to go with it. Also, I don't have anything else to post on my blog at the moment. So here you go.



    They say that VCR rental stores are dying because the world has moved on in the age of high-speed internet and flat screen blu ray players. This would explain why the "Big Mike's" video store of Green Peak, Maine, was still going strong.

    I parked the truck in one of seven or eight spots outside the store and got out. The parking lot was old and bare, like a perverse combination of a war zone with the world of commercialism and concrete. I suppose some people would call it folksy. 

    As I swung open the glass door, a few old leaves skittered away in random hops and jumps, like frogs on crack. I stepped on one and tracked it into the store, but I didn't waste time wiping my boots. I had no doubt that I'd improved the decor. It could have been my good deed for the day, if I hadn't quit the boy scouts to get away from that junk.

    I headed to the thriller section and had just discovered that all the "recent releases" were two years old when I realized something: everyone in the store was looking at me.

    There were quite a few of them. Like I said, the video store was the best source of entertainment around. I could see an old couple by the romance, some creepy looking fat nerd by the sci-fi, an old military dude in the back, and three middle-aged ladies who look strangely similar checking out. Given that this was a small town in Maine, I would have thought that the inhabitants would have made a larger effort not to look like they all crawled out of a Stephan King novel.

    I grabbed a copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I might be able to stand this summer if I had Harrison Ford to help me through it.

My main character turned out to be more of a cranky whiner than I expected at first. He'd probably turn out to be alright if we got to know him better. But we won't. So... yeah.