Devonne Brown

Like most things, Mona ignored the timer, and kept reading her book. She was approaching the climax of a scene, she needed to see the outcome of the turning point, wanted to watch the table turn, she couldn’t put the pages down just yet. Nothing was on fire. She read on. Of course the protagonist prevailed, there wouldn’t be a story had he not, at least not in these early pages. 

Mona got up for a fresh cup of coffee, and looked around the kitchen. She set the timer for thirty minutes and began to clean. She sorted dishes, and scraped pots and pans. She set to work for thirty good minutes so she could read some more. That’s how she arranged today. Thirty minutes of work, thirty minutes of play. She’d give herself something to look forward to every thirty minutes. When the timer went off, she’d stop what she was doing, and switch jobs, no guilt, it didn’t matter if she was finished or not, she’d just switch from reading to dishes. She sipped her coffee, proud of her plan, and opened the dishwasher.

The timer went off just as she loaded the last fork to the dishwasher, and she went back to her book. The kitchen still needed some work. She’d get back to it after another book section. Those dishes weren’t going anywhere, but the story was, and she needed to know where. She snuck in an extra two minutes on the timer. The story was getting real good.

The good guy was about to overcome an issue, work through a trauma, and save himself from dealing with the same baggage in the future. Mona couldn’t put it down. She stopped the timer altogether. She was just going to read straight through. 

Mess never  moves. Stories do. She had to keep up with this one. Damn the kitchen. What if the good guy didn’t figure it out? Then what? He was an idiot, he probably couldn’t. Who wrote this character anyway? This was a great book. She was caught in the moment of the words.