dice exercise #8

book/rain/night/eye/phone/banana

"It was a dark and stormy night," the girl read, before her sister stopped her.

"Are you reading 'Peanuts' again?  That old shit?"

"It's a classic!  It went on for like 50 years!"

"So many better comics didn't last.  'Calvin and Hobbes' isn't classic?  'The Far Side'?"

"I didn't say those weren't good, but 'Peanuts' spanned a whole, like, century."

"Ugh!" grumped the older sister, tossing her head and stomping out of the room.  She was never very good at maintaining a good argument.  It felt good to win, of course, but sometimes the girl wished she had a little more of a challenge.   

She returned to her book, lovingly feeling the pages with their edges fuzzy from fingers turning them.  She loved the simplicity of the lines, the easily identifiable characters, the basic storylines.  Other comics had more action and more patter, that was true.  But, there was something so close in this one, so much a part of daily life without exaggerating and creating fantasy worlds.  Well, except for that dog.  He was the girl's least favorite character, surprisingly for many.  He just wasn't very realistic.  At least he didn't actually talk like in that one with the dumb dog and the mean cat.  Whatever it was called.  Now she hugged the book to her chest and looked up at the towering bookcase, full of comics.  She stood up, replaced the book and slowly studied the shelves for another.  Maybe a more complete family now.  With adults and everything.  She pulled the book out and went to find her sister, ready to bore her with tales of growing up in a comics page.  Absent-mindedly, the girl picked up her phone as she left the room.

As she wandered into the kitchen, she saw the disaster about to happen.  It was the most comic cliché of them all.  The banana peel.  The inattentive pedestrian.  The fall.  And the modern phone to record it all.

"That was better than any 'Peanuts' strip!" the girl shrieked as she ran out to the back yard, smarting-bummed sister in hot pursuit.