Sticky Lips

First assignment of my fictional writing exercise book: Write about a scene that you saw for a fraction of a second happen in a public place. Describe who and what you saw. I saw an old man and a younger woman sitting in the mall on a group of chairs as I was waiting for my boyfriend to be done with work. They barely said anything to each other. The old man had an ice cream.

“Do you want me to hold your ice cream for you while you sit?”


“Sure… Just give me a minute to squeeze in between this table.” He handed me a sticky and dripping Rocky Road ice cream. I did my best to hold it in both hands with a napkin around it so that it didn’t drip on to the floor. I watched as my gray haired father carefully guided himself to the edge of the couch and turned so that he was facing away from it. He began to hunch over and slowly lowered himself down with an outstretched hand behind him. I put his ice cream in my right hand and used my left arm to guide him down as he started to sink into the couch. I imagined his back side to be programmed with a beeping noise, much like the backing up signal of a dump truck. As soon as he was settled I moved around his legs and sat on the right of him. I handed him back his melting ice cream.

“Thanks Vivienne.” He said

“No problem dad.” I replied

We sat there in silence observing the people in the mall walk by us. There seemed to be many young kids and parents circulating the store in front of us. I realized why. The store was a candy store and their special of the day was 50 cent cotton candy. We watched a long time as many children finally acquired their bright blue and pink sugary treats only to get it all over their faces and onto their clean white shirts in about two point five seconds. I looked over and realized my father was no different than some of the children. The chocolate ice cream had made a brown and sticky coating on the sides of this mouth. There were small brown dribble circles where the ice cream had dripped and sank into his shirt.

“Here dad, do you want me to go get some more napkins? You’ve got ice cream all over yourself.” I asked.

“Oh?” He sounded as though he was just trying to sound interested for my sake. It seemed like the mess of the ice cream didn’t bother him one bit.

“I’ve got to use the bathroom soon.I’ll clean it when I go.” He replied.

I let out sort of a half laugh. He always seemed to be content in whatever situation he was put in, regardless of who put him in it. After another minute or so I asked, “So dad, how have you been these past few weeks?”

There was a short pause. “I’ve been doing well Viv. You know just about everything else besides that.” He replied.

“Yeah, I know dad. I just feel like you seem to be doing so much better than you should." To this he said nothing and after another short while I said, "Mom died only two months ago.” I said this as though I was trying to convince him that he should feel more depressed than he was acting.

“Things happen that we can’t control. It was her time to go and that’s nothing I can have a say in.” He said briskly.

I didn’t really know what to say to that so I said nothing. Obviously everything does have a purpose and a time, but I felt alone in the grief I had for my mother’s death. Why did everyone seem to be okay with her passing besides me? I felt as though my dad should be upset like I was. I thought about pushing the issue further, but came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t do any good, so we sat in silence once again.