The first step to being back is being there. So, hopefully here I am. I’m glad to be bad to participating again in dVerse. And, lovely! Tonight we’re doing Prosery with one of my favorite poets, Jane Kenyon. I wrote a poem years ago in homage of her, I should find it and post it! Thanks, Victoria, for providing this prompt.

Dirty Martini

Something snapped inside Marge, like a dry twig in this Autumn landscape. She refused to warn them to strap themselves in for the oncoming bumpy night. They’d figure it out once she stopped being her usual “delightful” self.

She grabbed a dirty martini from the waiter’s tray and downed it. Too much damn olive juice and next to no gin. All of the featherweights drinking vodka martinis instead of gin. What was the world coming to?

“Tell the bartender to make these real martinis,” she said. The ice in her voice made the waiter jump, nod, run.

If it’s darkness we’re having, she thought, let it be extravagant because I am so ready for it.

And there she was: the niece, loud, seemingly innocent, upbeat. She reeked of spoilage—too often gotten her way, too often spared the rod.

Not tonight. The games began.

end (144 words)