Tag: short story

A Spaghetti Dinner  (Click here, and it will take you to the House where you can read the dinner story with pictures of the characters.)

PROLOGUE

Last thursday was a spaghetti evening at Mrs. Lompstrompf’s house, where Sally and Mathilda lodged. Sally was still recovering from a serious case of abscess on her neck due to her weak immune system for being anemic. The medication Dr. Humbug had prescribed to  her was Ajaxcillin/TMP 800/169 MG TB, which was to be taken twice per day. It’s an antibiotic, and Sally took 2 tablets a day religiously with her hands supplicant for a quick healing of the wound. The effect of the medication dovetailed with its name derived from Ajax the Great, a towering figure and great warrior of valor and strength fighting alongside Achilles and other famous Greeks against Trojans. One portant tablet would make Sally dizzy and her stomach feel light. No feeling of hunger would be shed over her. In a way, Sally thought this could be an opportunity to  lose some weight.

But Sally was prabably not meant to be thin because she could not resist the wonderful aroma of Mrs. Lompstromfp’s spaghetti. Mrs. Lompstrompf had receipts from her old Grandmother in Norway, the land of fjords and the Norse gods and goddesses, where her relatives were still thriving on their homemade dairy products.  Her spaghetti surpassed the most authentically Italian made one in flavor, texture, and contents filled with genuine affection for cooking and caring for whoever would taste her culinary blessing.

So Sally gladly joined the dinner table with Mrs. Lompstrompf and partook in a convivial conversation. She talked about her Web log activities, how much she liked writing anything that came to her mind, such as poetry, novellas, and book reviews although the works published were not widely recognized. Upon hearing this from Sally, the good old Norwegian lady gently encouraged Sally’s somewhat downcast spirit by saying, “Sally, but your writings are all original, written bottomless from the bottom of your mind. And besides, you are writing in a language that is foreign to you when all these other people write in their own tongues. ast out literary, grammatical, and syntactical inhibition when you write. Be like Hercules whose confidence equals that of gods and goddess.”

With this inspiring word of advice and encouragement from the saintly lady, Sally suddenly felt a rush of appetite that had been quelled by the antibiotic agents, thus joyously enjoyed the delicious spaghetti. Anything coming from Mrs. Lompstrompf was opposite to deceit, flattery, and lie. She talked only truth like an oracle at Delphi. Surely, the spaghetti tasted better than ambrosia or nectar.

And what about Mathilda, another boarder? She was in her melancholic mood again, so she stayed in her room. It’s not that she felt uncomfortable with both of the ladies but that it was her nature to be solitary once in a while. She was by  the way a writer like Sally. Both Sally and Mathilda kept their traveler’s notebooks in which  they wrote their journals and drafted what they would post on their Web logs.

So it was a nice warm Thursday evening dinner. Sally’s spirit was emboldened by Mrs. Lompstompf’s truthful revelation, and her wound on the neck seemed to heal considerably. Sometimes, everyone needs good food for the mind and the body because as the ancient Greeks said, “Mens sana in corpore sano.” (A sound mind dwells in a healthy body.)