She leant on the counter looking through the glass at the goodies laid out on the canvas cloth beyond, and she spotted the last remaining slice of cake – the pale pink icing, the layer of cream between the two halves, the side of fresh fruit – she wanted it; her mouth watered so much it was as though she’d never before seen a slice of cake and she almost drooled.
Sadly, she couldn’t have it – the man in the deli told her it had just been sold and they were about to take it out, and no matter how hard she tried, her powers of ‘persuasion’ failed this time; arguing wouldn’t help either – she had to realise it, the slice was gone.
Feeling eyes upon her, Beryl looked around the almost full deli to see one half of the couple she’d been speaking with earlier still there, the woman with the bob wearing the elegant blue silk dress, glaring at her – Cynthia was it? – but her nice poetically-voiced friend Connor was nowhere to be seen… she didn’t know what she’d done to warrant such a frosty reception, and pondered what to do about it. Cynthia was sat at a table by the side wall, beside a tall yucca plant, and Beryl could see Connor’s jacket draped over the back of the chair opposite her; with a smirk Beryl watched as the yucca wilted suddenly over to its side, its prickly leaves resting on Cynthia’s head, who oohed loudly in surprise.
“Leaving so soon?” Connor asked, just after Beryl collided into him as she started to walk away admiring her handy work; her powers of persuasion may have failed her, but not her magic.
“Alas, I am…” Beryl smiled broadly as she looked into her new friend’s eyes, her smile quickly fading as Connor took the slice of cake from the man in the deli, whispering “for Cynth” to Beryl as he did so, with a wink.
This is for Six Sentence Stories, where the prompt word is ‘Canvas’. Beryl was meant to join me at Chris Hall’s book launch on Friday, but inexplicably vanished during the course of proceedings. Apparently, at one point, she’d met up with a couple of characters from one of Chris’ other books, who make a brief, but starring, appearance in this post.
The Mansionic Perspective 
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