Blue Lagoon

This flash fiction piece was based off Chuck Wendig’s Cocktail prompt. I only got a wee way into it and then it fell through the cracks. It was set way back in April. I wasn’t planning on making it a thousand words, but shorter. I think it might be just a vignette (which at first I thought isn’t so bad) but I remembered a book that I bought that was just vignettes and how shitted off with it I was... nothing happened, nothing went anywhere. Rereading the prompt he says don’t just do a vignette, and we only had 500 words after all. So back under the hood I go (I write the intro after I finish the story. Back in a sec)... OK Done. All better now. No longer an icky vignette. 

As I was saying, the idea was to name your story after a cocktail and give the recipe afterwards. This prompt was set ages ago, so why am I dredging this old one up now? Exhibit A please, last line:

(From the inestimable Mr. Wendig, go buy his shit)

Nano is coming. I want to enter. Last year I didn’t finish, and this year I will. So I have to get in the habit of finishing. So I’m having a go at a lot of little quick writing things (which I also intend to continue with through November and beyond, as they're only little) so I get in the habit of finishing stuff, and giving it the once over rather than just chucking it up there. And I also intend to finish the shit I already started before nano. Sure, there’s still more planning I’d like to do, but I’ve got a good amount so far so I won’t just be pantsing all the way.

Blue Lagoon

Days here felt endless, but that’s not a bad thing when life is so pleasant. It did mean they tended to run together and get a bit sameish, but that was OK. Whoever said you can have too much of a good thing was our of their mind Zeke thought. How could you complain to waking up to the gentle susurration of waves lapping the sands? That never got old.

Relaxation, peace, bliss.

Zeke stretched, looking around his house. Sure, it was small, but it was a prime piece of beachfront property. He ambled outside and was greeted by the first rays of the morning sun, glinting on the breakers on the reef that protected his cove. He wandered down to the high tide mark, looking for anything new or interesting that had washed up during the night. Meandering past the occasional strand of seaweed he kept his eyes peeled but there was nothing extraordinary - there never was.

To cheer himself up, Zeke decided to go for his morning swim, and daintily dipped a toe into the water. The slight chill to it was pleasantly refreshing and he revelled in the feel of it. Always he was amazed at the varieties of colourful little fish that swam about. Sometimes they were together in a school, then they would suddenly spread out haphazardly, like a rainbow’s reflection in a mirror shattered by a hammer.

Later in the day after a nap, Zeke headed to his favourite rocky promontory, to fish. It was rare that he would catch one, but he didn’t care. To him it was more a time of introspection and thought somewhere out of the direct rays of the sun.

Sighing contentedly, watching the moon rise amidst twinkling stars Zeke the hermit crab drifted off to sleep next to his favourite rock pool.

I named it after a Blue Lagoon, but it could just as easily be a Blue Hawaii. They look immensely similar, and taste nearly the same. The lagoon has something carbonated making it lighter on the palate, and the Hawaii has coconut milk making it creamier, but the main point is they both have vodka and blue curacao. The last is the most important ingredient in my mind, because if you drink enough it turns your tongue blue, and your shit lawn green in the morning. So when you wake up hungover and look in the mirror and the can, you think you’re dying - until you remember what you were drinking.


Recipe for Blue Lagoon
Recipe for a Blue Hawaiian (and the picture is also lifted from here)