Another week, another challenge from Chuck Wendig… really? It’s been a whole week? Where does the time go?

This week he had a link for a random sentence generator. [as at April 2013. No longer working, but you can Google one pretty easily.]

By the way this is the most fun I have had in ages. Honestly, the sentences are just awesome! If you are ever stuck for a writing prompt, I would heartily recommend it.

The rule was, less than one thousand words and the sentence has to be the first or last sentence of your flash fiction. I cheated a tiny bit and pressed the button twice, I have put my sentences in blue, so that you can see them easily. Oooh I just did it again and got "the continent studies." bad girl; stop pressing the BUTTON!

Enigmatic Cookies

‘Every linear antique marries the voter,’ she read to herself.

She looked up at her friends. They had just finished lunch in a Chinese restaurant.

“Do you think this is a fortune?”

“What is?”

She read it out loud.

“I dunno. What’s a linear antique?” asked Mark.

“Something that stays the same value?” she suggested.

“Something that is flat and you know… linear?” suggested Matthew.

“A table,” stated Mark.

“No,” put in Matthew, “it says it got married. So it has to be a person, not a thing.”

“Oh yeah,” she agreed. “Marries the voter,” she read. “Am I the voter?”

“Are you?” Mark was finishing the last of the sauce poured over his boiled rice and spoke with his mouth full.

“What?”

“Do you vote?”

“Occasionally. If the weather is fine.”

“Ha! Can’t change the world unless you vote.”

“You think?”

“Was that sarcasm?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s compulsory in some countries, like Australia. You get fined if you don’t vote,” added Matthew.

“People fought for that vote. Especially women. You are letting down the ghosts of the suffragettes. You should be ashamed of yourself,” lectured Mark.

“Pfft,” she disagreed. “Well, do you vote?”

“Always.” He sounded triumphant.

“Rain, hail or shine?” she checked.

“Of course.”

She studied him. “Do you research it, or do you just fill in the ballot paper. Tick the boxes of the people with the nicest faces?”

“Ah,” he looked caught out. “I tend to stick to the same party.”

“That’s worse!” she declared. “You could be voting in some complete moron.”

“At least I vote,” he defended.

“I want a fortune cookie,” Matthew said. He waved at the waitress. “May I have a fortune cookie?” he asked her.

She looked doubtful. “Are you sure? They’re a bit weird today.”

“Only today?”

“All the current batch are a bit…” she looked for a word.

“Confusing?” Matthew suggested.

“Enigmatic,” she chose. “You’re happy with an enigmatic fortune cookie?”

“Oh, yes,” he assured her.

She nodded and gave him a second look. She put the large pot of Chinese tea that she was carrying down on their table.

“Hmmm,” he said as he watched her walk away. “She seems nice.”

“Maybe you’re the voter that is going to marry,” she commented as she stood and refilled their tea cups.

He laughed. “It was your fortune and she’s too young. Not antique enough. Or linear.”

“Old soul?”

The waitress came back with one solitary cookie on a plate. He reached for it after giving her a dazzling smile. “Thank you, Amber,” he read her name tag.

“My pleasure.”

She waited by the table.

He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“I want to see what it says,” she confessed.

“Oooh, me too,” said Mark.

He cracked it open and read out, “When will your machinery fear?” He snorted. “My machinery is all in good working order, thank you very much.”

“Good to know,” said Amber, as she passed him her phone number. She picked up the large teapot and walked away.

“Fortune cookies, huh.” He popped some of the fractured remains into his mouth and chewed. “Well, they taste okay.” He beamed at Amber across the room. She smiled back at him.

The others rolled their eyes.