Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

This past weekend, the Old Soldier listened to the radio and watched the television in stunned disbelief as reports came in about the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Mass shootings have become an all too common occurrence in American society; but this time the victims were adults and children, 20 children in an elementary school.

What is wrong with us?

Will this latest episode of mass shootings force the American people and our government to act to stop the carnage?  Or, will we do nothing as usual?

The whole world is watching.

*****

The following old story of mine was published in the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette on 15 November 2008.

*****

Boobs

It was a rainy March night in Pittsburgh. I sat with a female friend in a bar at a table at the big window that looked out on Forbes Avenue near the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. She and I had been drinking and now we were waiting for our wings, celery and blue cheese dressing, you know, to sober up a little before class. We were both in our early forties and worked steady jobs and we were taking the same night class at Pitt. It was Friday and we were prepared for class and neither of us had to get up early Saturday. So we could afford to get a little drunk. I was single but had my eye on a classmate I hoped to hookup with soon and my friend had been dating a new man several months now.

“Boobs,” my friend said. “What the hell is it with all you men about boobs?”

“What?”

“Don’t you know there’s more to a woman than just her breasts?”

Her breasts were large and for her age they looked pretty firm and still sat up relatively high. I said, “Lover boy working them over pretty good, huh?”

“I think I’m a cup size larger.”

“Well, maybe you’re just pregnant.”

She suddenly got quiet. I was just joking around. The waitress brought our wings.

“Everything all right here?” the waitress asked. I looked at my friend. She was staring out into the rainy night. A “Little Help From My Friends” by Joe Cocker was playing on the jukebox. There was a nice crowd, mainly undergrads, in the place.

“Two more beers,” I said. The waitress left. I said to my friend, “I was joking.”

She said, “I am pregnant. He doesn’t know it yet.” She looked at me. “Now what do I do?”

“Stop drinking alcohol?”

“Smart ass. You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

The End 

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• The Sunday Flash Fiction Story (4 November 2012) (pittsburghflashfictiongazette.com)
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Filed under: The Sunday Flash Fiction Story Tagged: | 16 December 2012, American people, campus, Connecticut, Newtown, Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette, Sandy Hook Elementary School, The Sunday Flash Fiction Story, University of Pittsburgh