Gloaming – New Balloon
Author – Stephen Aubert
It is the morning. Charlie is awoken by the sound of his daughter, Bella, tumbling down the staircase of their small, charming American small town house, in the charming, small American town of Spoons, which is quite small in its American small town charm.
It is raining in the small American town of Spoons, which causes alarm to Charlie, as it always does, because his buffoon daughter will slip and break all her bones on a wet surface unless carefully supervised by an obsessive. With a quiet sense of doom, he got up wearily to see how she would injure herself during the relatively simple task of cooking breakfast. Cooking him breakfast was something that she insisted upon doing daily, despite the fact that he was perfectly capable of doing this himself and she, clearly, was not. In fact, cooking him breakfast was one of her two hobbies, the other of which was alphabetising/indexing/categorising items.
He entered the kitchen to find Bella in mortal peril, with a badly burned hand, sliced finger and an alligator glued to her ear. Still, at least he would get some burned Rice Krispies out of it. After removing the alligator and placing it in the "dangerous animal pen – reptiles A- H" in the back garden, ready for possible re-categorisation later that day, he helped Bella nurse her injuries, whilst listening to her incredible whining nonsense.
"Bella, I've been meaning to talk to you about your birthday", interrupted Charlie. "I was wondering if you would like me to arrange a party for you and your one weird friend and I also want to know what present you would like".
"Although I am far too ugly to deserve the condescension of indulging my deepest birthday-related desire", said Bella, "I must confess that my dearest wish is to possess a balloon".
Deeply alarmed, Charlie replied, "You're not having a balloon - we've discussed this at length and my conclusion is that it is far far too dangerous, regardless of your categorisation of balloons as "air-filled amusement items – degree of safety 9 out of 10".
"Dad, I have only ever nearly died a balloon-related death twice, and I have learned from my mistakes, WHY OH WHY WILL YOU NOT LET ME LIVE MY LIFE?"
"I am trying to keep you alive, for some unfathomable reason, and balloon ownership may prove fatal to you, my dear dear twit – as it so nearly did twice before. Balloons are a serious choking hazard to anyone stupid enough to swallow them, such as yourself."
Bella, much chagrined, stormed out the room, injuring herself in seven places. She tentatively
negotiated the terrifying ordeal otherwise known as a staircase and threw open her bedroom door, which obviously smashed straight back into her face. Once safely in the room she observed a sparkly tramp-style person lounging on her bed in the louche manner of a 17th century ponce.
Through the concussion, Bella began to realise that the tramp was actually the godlike Adonis Edward Cullen, categorised in her mind as her "reason for living – priority level A1 – most marbleiest man/dangerous otherworldly being – most likely to kill/create sexual tension and not do anyfuckingthing about it" (which, incidentally, is the only category in her collection containing only one item/individual).
"I wish I could drink up some of your tasty blood", he said from out of his sparkly marbley face.
"Oh, you divine, beautiful, godlike, dazzling creature, dazzling away there, like some kind of torch/lighting equipment item – category C – lighting inventory index 4, I love you so very, very, much", said Bella as she fell backwards out of the room, narrowly avoiding a massive spike which had inexplicably appeared (although Charlie had been to the spike factory yesterday) and rolling back down the stairs.
As Bella's battered body thumped to the floor, the doorbell rang. Bella got up and reinserted her dislocated shoulder back into its socket then went to answer the door, narrowly avoiding the massive hole in the floor that had inexplicably appeared (although Charlie had been to the massive hole shop earlier that week).
Charlie had, however, pre-empted her and reached the door first, proclaiming, "Bella, a large dog is here to see you, try not to let it eat you all up".
Bella instinctively jumped into the big dog/werewolf's mouth and was whisked away into the woods at supersonic speed. "Fuck", proclaimed Charlie, before returning to enjoy the remainder of his bowl of burned Rice Krispies.
Edward being not only sparkly and marbley was also able to read the minds of large dogs, which was terribly handy. So after finishing reading "Where's Waldo" (which really was a rippingly good yarn) he was off, post haste, to save Bella yet again.
Meanwhile in the woods, on the outskirts of the small American town of Spoons, Bella was enjoying the fact that she was not being munched to death. She immediately categorised the experience in her mind as one of the mostly satisfyingly non-near-death-experiences that a fearful situation had ever turned out to be.
"Woof, woof", said her werewolf friend Jacob. "Sorry for carrying you off like that, but I just love you so unfathomably much. I mean, I just really can't fathom it and I thought maybe you could help me". "No, I am too ugly to be of any use to anyone in anything, or in any possible way", Bella whined. "Good point", said Jacob, the massive dog, "but I still do love you for some unfathomable reason which is unfathomable, for some reason which cannot be fathomed".
"What's a fathom?", sparkled Edward, from behind. "Oh Edward, thank god, thank the lord, oh praise the heavens, you have come", said the massive dog. "This cunt is really getting on my fucking tits, the ugly vampire-obsessed cowbag. I don't half fucking love her though. What's your opinion of her? I would be delighted to hear it".
"She's alright".
"Alright, alright? Edward, how could you, you're the marbleiest man I have ever known and I love you so very, very much. If you were gone, I'd have to go on and on and on about some hole in my chest or some other crap".
"Oh."
The End.