*The List (a short story)

The List

Charlotte ate green peppers all day long.

She had been sitting at her little circular kitchen table, in her old chair (the only one accompanying the table), surrounded by piles of her bills, sipping coffee from her mug. But no, she wasn’t tending to her bills with one of her pencils or pens, she was bent over her piece of paper, her eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. It had only two words on the top line, both spread far apart to represent two different categories. Two simple words, yet they represented something so incredibly big and important.

Boy                                        Girl

Charlotte had been sitting there for a half hour, names dancing by in front of her eyes, a parade of letters. But none had seemed right, so her pen remained poised in the air, waiting for its moment to shine. But it never came in contact with the college ruled sheet of white adorned with blue and pink lines.

She groaned. Blue and pink. Boy and girl.

Throwing down her pen, she paced in the kitchen, distracting herself by reciting in her head; My fridge, my counter, my sink, my dirty dishes, my curtains, my stove, my cooking spices, my overflowing trash, my coffee spoon. Not Mom’s stove, Mom’s fridge, Mom’s sink, Mom’s curtains, no, not hers. Mine. Not Dad’s coffee spoon, Dad’s dirty dishes, Dad’s overflowing trash, Dad’s cooking spices, no, not his. Mine. It was all Charlotte’s. It was strange, scary, and exciting all at once.