The Unloved Wanderer
Meet Shermatta!
Okay, here’s the first part of the scene. I’ll be posting the second (Larz’s part) over the weekend. For those of you who missed the setup click here to read about it. I’ve posted info at the bottom about what’s going to be added to our giveaway items, so be sure to check that out. Now? Onto the story. I’ll put into bold all the words you guys sent in. Between this first half of the scene and the next I managed to write in all the word suggestions and had fun with the story ideas you guys left in comments. Thanks so much for those. With that in mind, after I post Larz’s scene over the weekend I’ll need more help with this little story so keep the wheels turning as you read. 
The Unloved Wanderer
Scene one: Shermatta
There was nothing auspicious about the occasion. It was a necessary evil for Shermatta — Sherm to her one friend in the world—a mere trip to the grocery store for sustenance. The only important item on her list was her lone stealthy snack, an avocado. She’d given up everything else that could harm her bestie, Esmeralda, but she couldn’t squelch her cravings for the leathery-green fruit no matter how she tried. Therefore the single decadent delight had to be perfect, and there was only one way to tell. The prospective consumer needed to examine the dry little button on the stem end for color. Green meant go-ahead buy and enjoy. Brown meant bag it and tag it for garbage.
She’d been at the stand in her local market for ten full minutes, wading through the copious pile of unripe fruit to find the one. Surely there had to be a jewel among the rocks. Not that the uniformed shoppers who breezed by and grabbed those she’d already cast off as no good, cared. They may as well have tossed their hard-earned dollars in the bin, but that was none of her concern. She just wished they’d adopt a similar attitude and quit making her their business.
She knew the interlopers, otherwise identified as the smelly, perfume-wearing women who stalked through the produce aisle with their second-skin-workout gear on and sporting perfectly affected make-up, covertly examined her. She wasn’t fooled by them while they took their sweet time palming the tomatoes for their salads. If they’d spent half as much time picking their avocados as they did studying her, they’d have found the one in the pile, she was sure. She was also sure the same gym-dwellers, in fear of gaining an ounce, used the spritzer dressing product that “misted” one’s lettuce leaves instead of the more fattening pour bottle kind.
She snorted.
To her way of thinking, misting salad fixings was akin to making warm caramel custard without any sugar. It would look appetizing enough when it was put in front of you, but the taste? Dreadful. Salad was meant to be dressed not sprinkled. Unless those sprinkles were bacon bits.
Sherm loved bacon bits.
She curled down and hunkered over the last section to pick through, determined to ignore the enthralled-with-her patrons, that stared. Plucking an avocado to examine, she found it too hard. The next one was too soft. The next had the dreaded brown button. The next was split.
She grunted and shifted closer. There had to be one here, but when the next four turned out to be duds she growled and continued more aggressively to find the jewel. Pitted green fruit toppled and tumbled as she searched.
“Holy crap! Is that a guy?”
She heard the rude little bugger and pegged him for a tween. Gutsy, but blissfully ignorant.
“How about eggplant for dinner honey?”
Clearly the mother was trying to distract her little treasure. Distract and overlook, that’s what was wrong with today’s youth. A mother would rather explore her child’s feelings than give them something to feel, like the flat of a palm against a kid’s buttock. God forbid a parent should use corporal punishment to correct bad behavior. Oh no, better to—
Sherm lost her train of thought the second a milky-white arm shot in front of her. The skin was nude except for one long coiled black hair that spiraled out of the center of a flat brown mole. The spot held her transfixed. It was an impressive growth to be sure, but then when the limb disappeared from her view, the combined aromas of camphor and mothballs lingered.
She closed her eyes to savor the memories these scents conjured. Springtime. That’s what she recalled. Nail fungus always visited her at that time of year and there was no better cure for it than camphor.
She breathed in once more and another memory hit her.
Wintertime. Ah, the closed in and locked up feeling of suffocating in dry artificial heat for a full season washed over her. Thoughts of tossing those scented orbs with flagrant abandon in her closet to keep the moths at bay, flourished. There was nothing like the aroma. A veritable stew of old people scented air that reminded her of her Gammy. Her poor departed Gammy who had been the one to introduce Sherm to the simple beauty of the avocado in the first place.
But her quest to find the perfect fruit would have to wait for now, because she needed more of the heady elixir of home. Of Gammy. Of…
She scrutinized the tiny man with the ghost-white skin and inwardly sighed. She knew what she needed more of—him!
Meet Larz!
As I’ve said I’ll post Larz’s half of scene one on Saturday. Then it’s onto the next one. Heheheh…
The giveaway
We already have two signed books and the mystery box from last week…
This is what I’m adding to the above stuff:
It’s a large Aries magnetic clip and a flat 4X6 fridge magnet of “The boys”. When I post Larz’s scene I’ll be adding an item with David on it.
Thanks for stopping by!
Riley
