By Scott Keene
Hey,
It's been a tough week.
So Here's the story -
He just wasn't feeling it. He knew inspiration would come. It always did. Or usually did, he found himself correcting himself. So he had no doubt that inspiration would strike at just the right moment.
It's hot. Too hot for coffee. Two things he thought he'd never say: it's too hot for coffee and it's too cold for ice cream. and he'd just said one of them. Come December, if he found he was no longer craving ice cream, well, something was seriously wrong.
He looked around the coffee shop for a spark of inspiration. Lots of students, it seemed, the obligatory laptops and textbooks. A zombie or two on a couch in the corner - asleep or possibly passed out from the heat? He couldn't tell. No air conditioner in this place. Had it always been this way? Only ceiling fans making lazy circles overhead. He wasn't sure if they were helping or just pushing the warm air around and making him frustrated.
The walls were lined with bookcases and lots of interesting photographs. His eyes searched for something to hold onto, but... no, nothing yet.
Then he landed on the window. The sun was streaming through and he had moved from the table in front of it because it had just been too damn hot. But now he focused on what was hanging in the window: a pane of stained glass, most likely taken from an actual church. He had seen it many times before, but today he saw something he didn't remember ever seeing before.
Across the bottom, an engraved dedication. "Rev. and Mrs. Samuel Corwin."
That was it. He had it. His inspiration.
Scott Keene is a local Long Beach, California, short story writer and is a member of the Library Coffee House writers group.