This is a short story I wrote a few months ago(as in last month). And so here it is, mostly for Tinydancer, because she asked for it.
So this is my story, I hope you enjoy reading it.
Let me say this though...I am not the sort of person (or should I say girl) who writes romance all the time. So much so in fact, when I showed my close friends, they were shocked in short.
ENJOY!
The Misadventures of Two Lovers
A young man stood in front of a red door on 8th and 31st Street and Avenue. His top-hat was set upon his head at an angle, giving the gentleman a cocky look.
He held a bouquet of varied flowers; all jumbled up in his white-gloved grip, while his other hand was busy with a large, rectangular-shaped box. It was red with white French lace along its borders. He reached up towards the knocker, but found it (that is his hand) filled with the fresh flowers.
The young man frowned.
Then he tried and failed to reach with the hand that held the box of chocolate-and that would be Prim Rose Jelled-filled Chocolates.
A line appeared between his dark green eyes. But his eyes lit up again as he promptly stuffed the (unfortunate) flowers in to his mouth. He reached again for the brass knocker, but a rose's thorn stabbed him on his lower lip. He yelped (well as one might happen to yelp with flowers in one's mouth). He then wrenched the horrid, vile, and dreadful bouquet of flowers out of his mouth (or as he saw it), while spilling quite a few of them along the floor on the porch of the lovely city cottage.
The man glared at the flora and sucked on his already swollen lip. A drop of blood fell unnoticed on his clean-shaven chin.
A large honeybee wandered past, more than likely looking for something to show off to the honey bee queen, when the young bee scented the young man’s bouquet of fresh-this-morning-picked-flowers.
The satisfied bee silently nestled in to the flowers.
He (the man that is) then tried to bang on the door with his foot. But no one answered.
Now the man was in a foul mood. So foul a mood that all senses left him completely.
An older neighbor lady from one house down was peering over her spectacles at the “dashing man up one house”. It was as she was doing so that he (the young man) stuck his nose under the brass knocker, and tried to get it to fall soundly. This unseated the bee, which then stung the man on the ear.
He started dancing around so, knocking off his hat and yelling, for he had been stung and when he had been stung he had banged his nose on the door.
When the elderly woman saw this, she remarked to her husband sitting a ways over, “My he’s dashing but quite daft as well!”
The young man meanwhile was still having problems. Whilst throwing his hands up to hold his nose he forgot about the box of chocolates. Which of course had to have sharp edges. Thus his eye began watering as well. The bouquet of flowers also still had thorns, and he suffered yet more stabs and prods.
And of course there was no need to yell, for he was already yelling as it was.
So at this moment the door on 8th and 31st Street and Avenue opened on the previously described scene.
The young lady who answered the door wore a ski blue dress with only the finest lace on the sleeves and neck.
Her long dark locks were set loose upon her shoulders and her delicate hands flowed to her round lips.
“Well goodness gracious! What has happened to you, dear Chauncey?”
Now the young man, whom we have just discovered to be named Chauncey, could have told the lady in question that he had picked flowers from the meadow that very morning, bought her favorite type of chocolate and when upon bringing them to her had not simply thought of setting them down to knock with the knocker. Then, as we know, was stabbed by the roses, stung by an innocent honeybee, banged upon the nose, and poked with the box of chocolates, edged with the finest French lace. But dear Chauncey was indeed a young man (as some of you, I hope, have noticed), and so being he was prone to pride and not wanting to seem weak or simple-minded (as in not simply putting down one of the objects in one's hand to knock on a door).
So instead he said, “O dearest Clementine!” (Have you not noticed that is how most love-wooing speeches start?)
“I was on my way here to call upon you my love, when I passed by the alley at 28th Avenue. I was rushing here to see you, thus I did not pay much attention to the shadows following me.They set upon me and indeed at first did not know what to do! So I-“
“Wait, what were the shadows?” Clementine interrupted his fancy web of creativity as she led Chauncey into the drawing room.
“Well I daresay they were the wildest, rudest pack of scoundrels you would ever meet!”
“Oh!” she said in surprise and wonder. “Now go on dearest, and don’t leave a thing out!”
Nothing could stop “dearest” Chauncey now. He continued.
“Yes of course, my love. Now where was I? Ah yes. They set upon my person and demanded my purse! Yes my purse! Well I declined, of course, for who would even think of doing so? Not Chauncey Ballard! But they then got mad, for I called them some names I would not wish to even mutter in such lovely company.” He smiled at Clementine. She blushed a light red and hugged herself.
“Now even with the odds five -no- ten to one, I was not afraid. No indeed! As they came at me from all sides I let loose a left and then a right! And then a right again!” He did all this with a glass of lemonade in his hand, but naturally spilled some on the sofa he was reclining on.
“So after fighting off the half of them, there were 20 left standing, and I told them to give me
their purses. They came after me and I set a face upon my person that scared the living daylights out of them!” He did his best to show Clementine, but alas, he could not for his poor face was too swollen to do so.
He went on with his story, the truthful one already forever forgotten.
Clementine was so entranced by her love’s forceful story that she had succeeded in putting five lumps of sugar in the lemonade and had spread the jelled dill pickle root on the cherry dumpling cake instead of the oat and wheat crackers.
She kept on quietly repeating, “Goodness gracious!” at Mr. Chauncey’s most tense parts (which were quiet often).
Chauncey was (finally) interrupted by a house-servant’s crackles of laughter floating in through the door. For you see one of the maids (the only one who loved to gossip, as is usually the case) had witnessed the whole thing from the side garden and had just told the whole (and real) story to the rest of the household staff. All thought it quite amusing, for all thought “That Mr. Chauncey Ballard” was the funniest thing ever to set upon the doorstep (and also to fall upon it).
It was at this providential time that dearest Chauncey was reminded of the main reason for coming to Miss Clementine Caylin's lovely home.
After a look that sent the maid scurrying back to the hall, he looked at his beloved, who was busying herself at that moment by trying to wipe the dill pickle jam off the cake.
And reaching into his side pocket for a small box he turned to her and said, “Now dearest Clementine, I have something to ask you.”
To be continued. (but I don't know when that'll be)
-Lib
(that is its me...but without the whole "fabulous" and "superhero" thingy.)
