Member-only story
Spider, Spin Me a Web
A short story
The air is cool and crisp, the sun just breaking through some low clouds. It is a perfect day to be outside, a perfect day to write outside. Back home, Max thinks, it’s probably sleeting already.
He nods a greeting at an elderly lady shuffling by on the sidewalk, matching the pace of an ancient Yorkshire terrier at the end of a purple leash. The dog has a purple sweater to match, and seems a little embarrassed about it. The lady smiles broadly at Max in return; he is clearly not in Brooklyn anymore.
Max sets the old Royal on a small oak table that he rescued from someone’s garage sale. It might have been an attractive piece of furniture once, might even have qualified as an old-time writing desk. That was before a budding artist, or perhaps a drunken toddler, painted each of the legs a different, neon color: lime green, orange, sky blue, and pink. They had also carved some extremely impolite words into the tabletop, but his typewriter, papers, and coffee mug covered most of those.
Julia had very graciously made a sign with his name, the title of his most famous novel, and “Personalized Stories: $10.00;” the sign was securely taped to the front edge of the table. She felt five dollars was too little to ask for an original creation, and he liked her even more for that.
