I belong, as a contributing member, to a talented group of writers who are responsible for A Muse Bouche Review, a literary newsletter. It gives me a chance to write something new each month around a given theme, which I’m enjoying. The theme for October, 2024 is Fire and my contribution this month is a short story titled The Four Stages of a Fire. Here’s how it starts:

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1. Incipient

In the first stage of a fire, heat and oxygen combine with a fuel source, and ignition is reached. At this point, should appropriate action be taken, the nascent flames can be readily extinguished. Timing is crucial.
Patty Anne is already having herself an epically bad day at The Main Street Diner, even before shit goes south. 

Pete, proprietor and cook, had originally scheduled her for the day shift, and she was looking forward to a date at home with a tub of Jeni’s Brown Butter Almond Brittle ice cream and the Real Housewives. Then Sherri had called off sick (still drunk from the night before, most likely), and she couldn’t leave Mitzy to work the night shift all alone, so she agreed to work a double. Mitzy was a great waitress, and a total sweetheart, not to mention she made all the legendary pies in the place, but she was just a couple months shy of sixty-seven, and nights were busy. The Main Street Diner (which confused out-of-towners, because it was actually on 9th Street, but the locals all called the town’s main drag Main Street, go figure) was the only place in their small town open past supper time, and they tended to stay crowded all evening.

That second shift turns out to be a real ass kicker for Patty Anne and Mitzy both—bad tips, difficult customers, dropped plates, and feral kids running amok thanks to free-range parenting. 

By eleven o’clock, with an hour left until close, Patty Anne is at the end of her very short rope. Her friendly smile, the one she practices in the mirror, is nowhere to be seen, but there’s a distant light at the end of the tunnel. Only one table occupied, way back in the corner, a young couple sharing a strawberry shake like they stepped right out of an Archie comic book. 

That’s when the diner door bangs open, ringing the bell, and a pack of obviously very drunk boys from the State College the next town over stagger in on a wave of obnoxious laughter. Mitzy shakes her head and says, “Any table, boys.”

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To read the entire story, and all the other pieces from this talented crew, check out the October A Muse Bouche Review, available here:

https://mailchi.mp/aafb71c48b44/a-muse-bouche-review-plots-parties-18088732?e=46f6fd2a9e#RG