Theme Fridays: car keys

WRITERS’ CORNER

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THEME FRIDAYS

Here it is, Friday once again.  This week’s theme is courtesy of the fabulous Annie over at The Home Planet and the theme is car keys.  This was particularly fun and i’m sure that our collaborators’ efforts will not disappoint.

Sadly, J, writer of Not A Housekeeper is sick this week.  We hope that she feels better soon.  It’s not the same without her, but we decided to move ahead this week and look forward to her awesome participation next week because we adore her. 

car keys

    i.    
“Have you seen my keys?” she asks, because of course, they’re not on the key hook. The key hook she purchased so she could put her keys there. For she was always losing them and it was suggested by her son that if she put them in the same place, she’d always be able to find them.

So there is the key hook- empty- because she has not remembered to put her keys there.

    ii.    
Car keys are shiny metal shaped like a phallus. A scary phallus, what with their teeth and all. The phallus of a monster.

There is the ignition, also metal. A hole. A slim hole because there must be a tight fit. There is nothing scary about the hole. Except that it accepts the key, what with its teeth.

The key is placed in the hole and turned. The key is turned and the hole is turned and activity occurs somewhere in the steering column.

Then the car turns and we’re on our way.

 

    iii.     
She had positioned her keys between her fingers and made her hand into a fist.

I should’ve had security walk me to the car, she thought. But she was impatient, tired, and hadn’t wanted to wait around for an escort.

The parking lot was dark and shiny with recent rain. Later she would recall strongly the scent of wet asphalt- a smell she once loved, but now…

She’d heard the steps- stumbling, a menacing syncopation behind her, and was ready. Right near her car, the hand fell. She brought her metaled knuckles across his face.

He’d got her, still. Even wore a condom. He was caught a few days later in the vicinity- probably to scope out an opportunity for vengeance- identified by four deep gouges on the left side of his face.

And convicted by the skin found on the teeth of her car keys.

    iv.   
“Do not let him put that in his mouth!” I say.

“Sorry,” Chauncey grumbles. “But he likes them and they’re the only thing keeping him quiet.”

“Find something else. Keys are filthy.”

“How are they filthy? What if I wash them?”

“Gosh! No, Chauncey. Just take them away.”

He does. The baby cries. Chauncey leaves. I put out my hands and lift the baby to my shoulder.

“As usual,” I say.

    i.    
She looks in her bag. She looks in the bill drawer, on the desk, in her bag again. Her son watches with arms folded and a smirking mouth.

The car key is in his pocket.

Where are Annie’s keys? 

(copyright 2008 )  c A Hughes
07.11.08