The Vic
01 Apr 2019Today’s prompt: “You’re having lunch with a friend. Your friend gets a call in the middle of the meal. Write just your friend’s part of the conversation.” [Choose the name in brackets that accords most closely with your gender expression.]
“Oh. Oh hey. Hey yeah, can we talk later? Yeah, things are fine, it’s just – now’s not a good time to talk, okay? No, I’m at lunch with the vic– I’m at lunch with them right now. Yup. Yeah, talk to you soon.”
“The vic?” you ask when your friend hangs up.
“Oh. Ha ha. Yeah. I guess I’ve always thought of you more of as a [Victor/Victoria]. You know how sometimes you’ll associate a person you know with another person you know? Like, my mom mixes up my brothers’ names all the time, and she sometimes calls me Carol, after her sister Carol. So yeah. I guess you just seem kind of like a Vic to me.” You stare at your friend, who suddenly seems incredibly manic and is barely pausing for breath. “Yup, yeah, a Vic! Kind of, you know, a sturdy name, like, good old dependable you! Yeah, it just seems like it fits you. Vic! Can I call you Vic? I mean, ha ha, you just seem so much like this other Vic I know, ha ha ha.”
“Do you. Know a lot of Vics?” you ask, a bit baffled.
Your wild-eyed friend grabs her phone, goes into Recent Calls, and thumbs the number that just called her. You think you hear a muffled “Hello?” against her cheek, but she just shouts into the phone “NOW NOW NOW NOW!”
People in black robes stream in from the kitchen of the surprisingly quiet restaurant, stuff a cloth napkin in your mouth and frog-march you to the wine cellar, where a pentagram, a chanting figure and a ritual death await you.