The family dinner explodes in fire.

The Grayson family sat down for dinner at six o’clock in the evening. Mom served the table: sliced turkey sandwiches, salad, mashed potatoes and iced tea. The walls of their dining room were an eggshell gray, very modern in its effect. The plates were an equally drab olive color and the silverware was completely sanded down, matted so as not to reflect any light. Mom sat the pile of sandwiches in the middle of the table, next to the bowls filled with salad and potatoes, between the pitcher of iced tea and extra napkins.

Junior reached up and grabbed two sandwiches, Sister took one, father grabbed two as well, and mother had three. Father looked at her bulging hips and died a little inside. Junior poured himself an already sweetened glass of tea and added three packets of sugar, stirring the drink and staring at the ice cubes, his legs twitching, his knees bumping the underside of the table. Sister’s plate shook and her mashed potatoes jiggled, falling over onto her sandwich. The food touching sent shivers of revulsion through her stomach, and she kicked her brother hard on the shin. Junior happily ignored the aggression and drank his tea in big gulps, smiling at his sister all the while. Sister looked over at father, imploring for intervention with her eyes. Father chewed his food and stared directly at his plate. Sister crossed her arms and dropped her fork on the ground. Junior continued to knock the table. Sister grabbed a salt shaker, twisted off the cap and dumped a large amount of salt in his drink. Mother saw this and threw her sandwich down on the table. This jiggled her arm fat, which father saw, and he crushed his sandwich in his right hand.

In the next moment, all four members of the Grayson family became very still. They all looked up and directly ahead, at exactly the same moment. Their jaws locked up. They could breathe but not speak. Their eye colors changed from blue and brown to red. Their hair stood up straight and their arms began to shake, smacking the table enough to cut their skin. And from those cuts, smoke came, little puffs from the small knicks and a large cloud from the bigger ones. Their stomachs expanded and their bodies ballooned outward, expanding to the point that their clothes ripped apart, their skin stretched and where it was stretched too tight, bright orange light shone out from beneath. When they had expanded to an extent that they were no longer recognizably human, their jaws unlocked and great jets of fire spewed from their mouths.

The horizontal fountains of flame evaporated the iced tea, singed the bread, wilted the salad and melted the mash potatoes. The Family then burst from inside, each member became a complete flame and burned for mere seconds until every part of them had converted to heat, their bodies reduced to balls of fire hovering over their chairs. The balls burned brighter and brighter, covering the dining room in blinding heat and light until, finally, all that was left were four piles of ash, seated around the table, up and down, left and right.

~ by thethingswethink on October 1, 2007.