Here is a short piece of fiction I wrote about one of the characters in one of my novels. It was written nearly 10 months ago but never published. I just re-read it and it seems publishable to me, so here you go. It is short. It ends abruptly. It may someday be part of a larger work. Enjoy!
by Basil Sprig
Smitty had an insatiable appetite for life.
He loved every sort of food, and really could never understand people who didn't like a certain food.
He loved every sort of music, and could never wrap his brain around people who shunned a certain genre.
And art? He loved everything from the realists to the abstract expressionists, and the millions of nuances in between.
Movies and theater: great stuff. He wished he had more time to watch every movie, every television show, and see every theatrical production.
Musicals? No problem. He loved them too.
And booze?
Some of his friends through he was an alcoholic because he drank so much. But as things stood, he wanted to try every new and interesting cocktail. He wanted to try all the different and various and nuanced wines. He was on a quest to study every wine region in Europe, what grapes they grew, and what wines they produced. He was even getting to where he could actually do a blind taste test and come up with a pretty close guess as to what wine he was drinking.
Smitty's ancestors had been pioneers, and unfortunately abolitionists. Somehow the notions that all alcoholic beverages were evil was passed down through the generations. So he never really quite fit in with his biological family.
Over time, society's acceptance of "a glass of wine with dinner" became more widespread. Smitty took advantage of this to crack open a bottle of wine every time he visited his parents. At first he kept this bottle hidden, only pouring himself a glass once dinner was on the table. In later visits with his parents he started keeping the bottle of wine in the kitchen where everyone could see it. It wasn't long before he was having several glasses of wine per day at his parents house.
Occasionally his mom would snap at him: "Your aunt Jeraldine is coming over. You make sure you hid that stuff. She doesn't tolerate people drinking!"
He had complied and hidden the wine, only to find aunt Jeraldine was getting more liberal too, and had actually brought a bottle with her to dinner.
"I heard you drank wine, Nephew," she said.
Smitty just smiled and gave his aunt a big hug.
He noticed his mom was looking the other direction with a perturbed expression on her face.
It wasn't easy being an aesthete and epicurean in a family of austere abolitionists.
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