This is part of an assignment that a friend gave to me.  It was to write a complete story in 150 words or less… but you could use footnotes to make it much longer.  However, the initial 150 words had to operate as a fully developed story.  I’m kind of pleased with it.

He looked up at the top of the orange tree and watched the California [1] sun blaze down on the leaves.  His Minnesotan brain struggled to compute that it was January eighth, that the sun was blazing and that, for some reason, he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and was barefoot, soil between toes.  He reached up and stood on the tip tip tip of his tip toes [2], felt the rind of the orange slip between his fingers and snap off the branch like a saltine cracker [3].   Acidic sting from the citrus juices seeped under his fingernails and hardly bothered the boy’s calloused nerve endings as he methodically peeled the ripe fruit [4].

[1] It should be noted that this boy was in Breckenridge, Colorado only two days prior.

[2] The boy had to stand on his tip toes because of a torso injury years beforehand, giving him shooting pains whenever he reached an arm high above his head.  This was one of the first times the injury got in the way of anything other than proffering answers to questions in class.

[3] That is, if you have taken care of your saltine cracker supply and they’ve not gone stale, still snapping in two, like bones cracking against speeding cars, not like the dull thud of fists against grass.

[4] Ten years beforehand, his father had struck him with a bag of oranges across the back and torso repeatedly.  His father had told him this method was best because it did not cause bruising.  The oranges, however, will be black, mushed, smashed inside without shape beyond that of the rind’s support.  Pulpy, black, and inedible.