The Cruller Twist

by Mickey Hunt
     A bright spring noon and there’s Nicole, sitting at the café table along the sidewalk. “Lauren!” she says and jumps up. “Wow. So glad you came. A wonderful reunion for my birthday.”

     We hug and I say, “You look so good, Nicole.”
     “You do, too.”
     “I can’t believe it’s been, how many? Five years since graduation?”
     “Yeah!” Nicole says. “We’re really looking forward to your concert tonight.”
     “My first in Asheville. Here’s a . . . Here’s a present for you. I hope it's not too big.”
     Nicole reaches into the decorative bag and lifts out a snowy white hoodie emblazoned with a Duke Blue Devil. “Perfect, it’s perfect!” she says, holding it up...

"The Cruller Twist" (956 words) a "literary" story, is available for publication. It was a finalist in the 2016 Neoverse writing competition. Read it HERE.

Arrangements

by Mickey Hunt

        David Welch, Sr. arranged flowers, but right away you probably adopted the wrong impression about him, because he made the art form nearly into a masculine sport. As with the great chefs and composers of the world, most of the top floral designers are men.

        I suppose his regular work lent masculinity to his love for color, pattern, balance, theme—all those elements contributing to a finished arrangement. And his were not just “arrangements”—the masses of flowers you see at weddings or funerals—rather, they portrayed natural environments and worlds in themselves reflecting an idealization of life. He was a landscaper and a retail nursery owner—had been all of his adult life.

        He didn’t actually begin flower arranging until his wife died four years ago. That’s when he ordered several boxes of flowers and made the funeral displays himself, weeping off and on. Those displays were simple, like what you usually see, he being a beginner, though they served well enough.

        Funeral flowers . . . they never help anything . . . they’re mere thoughts, symbols of sympathy and consolation, and not real in themselves.

        Hannah is real. She emanates a beauty that catches your eye, yes, but becomes even more apparent and satisfying the more you watch her, the more you get to know her. A complicated beauty and intelligence that might intimidate most men, the beauty of a talented movie star when she isn’t made up and glamorized. She was a friend of David’s daughter, Olivia, and was the same age as her, and she worked at the nursery in the summers, the Bluestone Nursery and Landscaping. Hannah was pursuing a horticultural degree at North Carolina State University, and when she graduated, she came on board as a manager...

[Arrangements continued]

Arrangements (4316 words) was revised and re-titled on 10/17/14.

Update 10/24/16:  Watch a HD video of me handing out the first five paragraphs of this story at an anti North Carolina HB-2 rally in Asheville.
Part One.  Part Two.