let's fork!

[oldtoadwoman]

I feel like these posts should be members only (with perhaps the longest fork being a public post if people so desire?), but for now I'm making this one public so it can serve as an example.

Remember, don't contradict a fork. If you don't like something, start a new fork. You can write in more than one thread. You can write more than once in the same thread, but you cannot write directly onto your own last comment. Remember the goal is to PLAY WITH WORDS and not get uptight about getting the ending you want or having a polished final product.

All comments must be fic! If for any reason you need to make a comment that's not part of the story, mark it in brackets or something so it's obviously not part of the story. Like maybe: [Hi. In my last comment, I typed "lose" but I meant "loose".] But generally try to avoid any non-fic replies or it will get really confusing.

Comment over on the brainstorming post about what you like and dislike about this process so we can decide the rules for the next one.

If the story never forks, we have not failed. If the story forks multiple times and we have seventeen contradictory stories, we have not failed. Accept that this is a hot mess before we even start!

I'm making up this first one without input just because I feel it's easier to just do it rather than keep trying to explain what I mean.

the first experimental fic

I'm going to call an end to this one Sunday night (Feb 24th, USA) unless people are still actively posting (or sooner if people aren't actively posting). (All rules are bendy.) [EDIT: first bendy-rule adjusted, no end dates needed.]

imaginary bonus points for working these into the story:
apricot, ice, chartreuse, grandmother✔

"Coffee!" she demands without so much as a please or thank you.

She doesn't wait to hear the price and shoves a handful of coins across the counter. One of the coins is a U.S. nickel. Two are British shillings, oddly shiny given their age. He doesn't recognize the other coins she's handed him, but at least one of them appears to be solid gold.

EDIT: I just realized we don't have a title. Maybe this time we'll come up with a title at the end?

guidelines

Comments

[used_songs]

He sighs internally and thinks, ‘Damn these tourists with their foreign money and their rude, colonialist attitudes … wait … is that?’

He sweeps the coins off the countertop and drops them into his pocket before she can look down and notice what she’s done.

When the foreigner leaves, he waits until the shop is empty before sliding the thick coin out of his jeans. As he suspected, it’s shipwreck gold. That begs the question as to how it ended up in a rich tourist’s handbag in Ciudad de Mexico. Was there some newly discovered wreck in the Gulf? She hadn’t looked like a wreck diver.

The bell on the door chimes as someone comes in and he looks up, startled. Did she realize her mistake and come back to claim her coin? He clenches his fingers around it, the metal cool in his hot fist.

“José!”

He relaxes. “Hey, Lupita.”

“Mamí wants to know when you’re off work.”

He frowns. “Why didn’t she just call me?”

Lupe shrugs. “She tried. She said you weren’t answering.”

He checks his phone. It’s dead. ‘That’s weird,’ he thinks. ‘I know I charged it and I haven’t used it much today.’

“Well?” his sister asks impatiently.

“Um, I get off at 7.”

Lupe frowns. “Qué lástima! OK, well, you need to go home as soon as you get off work because she wants us all there for dinner.”

“Tell her I’ll be there.” He waves as his sister leaves the shop and then slides the coin out of pocket again to examine it. Even though it had been in his pocket and the air in the shop was warm, it was now so cold that he could barely hold it. His fingers tingling, he grabs one of the rags used to wipe down the counters and hastily wraps the coin in it. ‘Now what?’ he thinks.

grandmother

[oldtoadwoman]

The last few hours of his shift drag on unbearably slowly.

He shouldn't have told Lupe he'd be off at 7. Mamí will give him hell if he's late now. There might just barely be time to stop by the pawn shop first. He can claim it took extra time to close up. A slow customer who wouldn't leave.

It's as if the thought cursed him though. The coffeemaker—the new fancy one with all the buttons and lights—stops working and he has to make all the coffee with the old French press. He secretly thinks it's better that way, but it's slower and everyone is as impatient as he is tonight. Some evenings, he doesn't sell a single cup of coffee in the last hour before closing, but today everyone and their brother wants coffee.

Five minutes to close and he still has two people in line.

"That isn't enough change!" the old woman snaps at him. "You're cheating me."

The man in line behind her rolls his eyes and glares at José as if it's his fault the old woman can't count. He gave her the exact change, but she still holds out her hand insisting she is two coins short. He already rang her up and if the register doesn't match there will be a fight with the boss in the morning, but he doesn't have time to argue with the old woman now. If she is anything like his own grandmother, they would still be arguing at midnight. He pats his own pocket absently remembering the pocket of change. Maybe she'd be happy with a nickel and two shilling?

He randomly pulls coins out of his pocket, expecting a fresh argument about foreign currency, but is surprised to see that the first two coins are exactly what she'd been asking for. How did he not notice those?

Four minutes to close and one customer remaining. José has a brief moment of optimism and then the bastard smiles as he places a to-go order for seven cups of coffee, each with a full list of custom modifications.