Five Minute Observations

Tag: Fiction

  • Setting the Cruise Control

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    Angie is my favorite person in the whole world. She and I do a lot together. And I mean a whole lot! We get coffee. Manicures. Pedicures. Facials. We’ve been known to get massages simultaneously but with different masseuses. Huh. That would be kinda hard. Two massages at the same time? I wonder if Sven…

  • Rin Zaterelli

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    “Get down!” A black, unmarked, unlicensed car pulled up next to Zaterelli’s limousine, automatic machine guns firing into the limo. Reinforced Kevlar plating, bulletproof glass, and insulated rubber tires made the limo the perfect vehicle to keep the crime boss safe. Rin Zaterelli and two of his goons were finishing up a quick visit at…

  • Check-In with Floyd

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    “You know somethin’ Jim,” Doc said, rolling down his window halfway, “the ladies is right. Somethin’ ain’t right ‘bout Floyd not being in the diner for a week. I sure hope we ain’t goin’ to find him holed up inside the house, windows locked tight, shotgun in hand, ready to shoot whoever decides to come…

  • The Zaterelli Family

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    “Mr. Zaterelli? There’s a Zander Melton here to see you?” The voice on the other end of the office intercom was silent. “Melton? Zander Melton?” Rin Zaterelli looked at the two goons on either side of his mahogany desk, puzzled. Both men stood in unison, ready to bum-rush the door. Zaterelli hired them as bodyguards…

  • The Patterson Homestead

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    “I’ll drive,” Doc told Jim, opening the passenger door for him. Jim eyed Doc’s truck. The eight-inch scratch showed signs of rust. Jim shook his head, no. “You’ve been tryin’ to drive us places ever since you put that gash in the passenger side door. I remember. Ya almost killed me. I told you once,…

  • Janice’s Pancakes

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    Waking up early was never a problem for Floyd. He’d been waking up before 4 A.M. since he was twenty. He greeted the morning with a cup of black coffee, stopping chores just long enough to appreciate the simplicity of his life. Work. Eat. Sleep. Nothing complicated about it. Doc asked him at Janice’s Diner…

  • The Harrow Club (cont.)

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    Six minutes later . . . “Good afternoon, Mr. Barton.” “Good afternoon, Jasper.” “Right this way, sir.” Jasper led him through the dining room, seating him very close to James Penrose and two other business partners. Jim didn’t recognize the other two men. Based on their attire, he assumed they were angel investors looking to…

  • RDF Plastics – Cujo and the Man

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in ,

    Continuation of RDF Plastics.

  • RDF Plastics

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    Looking into the mirror, he saw the reflection staring back at him and thought about saying the infamous line, what are you looking at. Instead, he chose to smile at the audacity of that particular thought. “You’re being ridiculous. Everything is going to be fine. Smile. Nod. Shake hands and walk out. That’s all you…

  • Mrs. Franklin’s Fourth Graders

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    “Do you dream in color? Or black and white?” Kenny asked Steve, looking from the edge of the Breckenmeyer Bridge. Both boys threw rocks and anything else they could find into the river below. The bridge spanned roughly a quarter mile and allowed one car at a time. But that was long before either boy…

  • One Day in the Cafe

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    “It’s not that big of a deal,” she said. “I mean, I really. I didn’t. No, I didn’t really want coffee. Not really, anyway.” Ten seconds earlier, she held a precariously balanced iced vanilla latte between her philosophy textbook, a day planner, and a hand-me-down iPhone 13 from her grandmother. Unlike other twenty-somethings, she refused…

  • Floyd Patterson and Janice’s Diner

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    Floyd complains about lukewarm coffee, sparking banter with Kathy in a slow-paced diner.

  • From An 80-Year-Old Film

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    “Take my hand!” His lips mouthed the words. I couldn’t hear what the medic standing over me was saying, and nothing. I tried to get my body to work. It felt like a thousand needles in my fingertips, that same feeling you get when your extremities fall asleep. Or if you lay on your arm…

  • Suzie’s Coffee Shop

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    “Right, right, right.” “Are you just agreeing with me?” “Why on earth would I do that?” “Um, I don’t know? To mess with me?” “Why would I want to mess with you?” I’d never seen this woman dressed in capris with red heels, a crème colored blouse, pearls around her neck, and a full-length thinly…

  • The Unusual Sounds

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    You expect certain sounds in Tualatin in the evening. Cars driving over the pavement, catching every uneven section with a thunk-thunk. The acceleration and deceleration of semi-trucks, some shifting up or down. It all depends on their speed. Whether or not they catch the beginning or end of a traffic light’s cycle will determine the…

  • Teaching English

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

          For a spring day, it wasn’t that cold. The SEMO sweatshirt I was wearing kept me comfortable enough. Not too hot. Not too cold. Not just right. Adequate is more like it, but I could’ve cared less. Coming from an English class where the students thought they knew more than the instructor was scary.…

  • What Would It Be Like

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    Thinking to myself, I wondered what it would be like. “Josh, I’m starting to think you might be a little bit, you know? Woohoo.” Travis put his finger to his temple and spun it in a circle, the universal sign of being insane. “That’s a little too out there.” “Why? Like you’ve never thought about…

  • Church Ladies of Birchhaven

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    “What happened to Jennifer and Sarah? I thought they were friends.” After eating a light lunch at Pete’s Diner, Francis and Martha sipped their espressos. Both women were friends from the local Southern Baptist church, lifelong followers of Jesus, and very stuck in what they would say is their views of Christianity, regardless of how…

  • Worse than Mount Vesuvius

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    by

    Joe Class III
    in

    “The shockwave itself would be greater than the sum of all the worst volcanoes we’ve ever seen in the last hundred years, Todd. Worse than the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii. It’s impossible from today’s physics.” “But there’s quantum theory. What about the possibility of everything, everywhere, existing in one plane…