poire gourmande

Prompt: Use a variety if sensory details to describe your favorite place in the world.

Word count: 292

Rating: PG



Montreal.


The best city in the world, because it is all the cities in the world. A city of diversity, a plural city.


The Quartier Latin, with its restaurants – Chinese, Mexican, Italian – its bars – punk, Irish, reggae – its schools, its people – students, artists, homeless.


The Quartier des spectacles, with its shops, restaurants, theaters. Ballet, festivals, music, an orgy of culture for everyone.


Chinatown, where you can’t tell if you’re still in Quebec or if you walked through a mystic portal and wound up in Asia. Sidewalk sales, inviting bakeries, whole lacquered ducks, not a word of French or English to be found.


The Plateau, with its overpriced – but oh so good – restaurants, its intellectuals, its hipsters, and the most gorgeous apartments you’ll ever see – but overpriced too.


The Old Port, with its buildings dating from the first days of the colony, where you can really see history before your eyes. With its paved streets dating from before cars existed, where you can’t walk in heels because it hurts. Where you can rent a pedal boat and struggle for ten minutes to learn how to steer it before your rental time is over. Where you can skate on the Bonsecours basin in the winter, and protest in the streets in the spring – Le Printemps Érable, they say!


Montreal is my city, a city of constant culture shock, where winter lasts six months, but where summer makes up for it with epic heat waves. A city with the most beautiful women in the world – because they’re from all over the world.


And the language – a fantastic mélange of French and English, with a bit of Québécois thrown in for good measure: music to my ears.


I’m in love with Montreal, does it show?

Prompt: “Maria had just spent 700$ on a pair of shoes. ONE pair of shoes. WHAT had she been thinking?”

Word count: 431

Rating: PG

Maria had just spent 700$ on a pair of shoes. ONE pair of shoes. WHAT had she been thinking?

She’d been thinking quite a lot, actually. About how she wasn’t sure she really wanted to marry Alec.

What if he stopped loving her?

What if he left her at the altar?

What if he cheated on her?

With her best friend?

What if he had proposed only because she wouldn’t stop nagging him?

What if he didn’t want kids?

What if her mother-in-law hated her?

She was having a nervous breakdown right in the middle of the mall. She walked into the first store she saw - a shoe store - took a gorgeous pair of shoes off a shelf, and walked right to the register. She didn’t even hear the cashier telling her the total - 699.99$ - she just handed her a credit card.

The sound of the card sliding through the machine calmed her down just a bit. She was able to breathe, now, and she entered her PIN with a calm smile.

She finally got home and tried on the heels.

They didn’t fit.

They were at least two sizes too small.

What if it was a sign from the universe, telling her Alec wasn’t the right fit for her?

She needed a drink.

She just blew 700$ on a pair of ill-fitted shoes, the wedding was in two weeks, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go through with it at all.

That’s where Alec found her when he got home from work an hour later: crying on the couch with an half-empty bottle of wine, a pair of too small, expensive looking shoes dangling from her feet, watching 27 Dresses.

He took a look at the crumpled-up bill at the bottom of the shoe box, and pulled her in a tight embrace.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered as she sobbed against his chest. “We’ll return them to the store, it’s alright.”

“Is that what you’re gonna do when you get tired of me?” she yelled through her tears. “Return me for another model?”

“Oh, baby, no! You know I love you. You’re just stressed because of the wedding planning,” he said softly, trying to soother her.

“You won’t leave me at the altar?” she asked in a small, unsure voice.

He shook his head.

“You won’t cheat on me with my best friend?”

“I promise you I won’t.”

She wiped her tears and hugged him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Maybe with your sister, though,” he chuckled, and was glad to see she laughed with him.