Zero Draft — Volume One
Some moments stay with you forever.
Some shrimp, thankfully, do not.
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Shrimp does not belong in pasta.
Not this shrimp.
Not this pasta.
It was wrong.
It was the opposite of forgettable. It was the kind of meal that threatened to define the night.
And worse yet to ruin it.
And tonight was a night not meant to be remembered by a pasta with shrimp.
A pasta with shrimp did not deserve that honor.
On a random Tuesday it might be worth the risk but today was a Monday. The Monday.
He tossed the meal in the trash after eating only enough for its taste to linger through each step down the hall.
To the room that mattered.
Not the shrimp.
Not the pasta.
The room.
In the moments that followed, he fought the shrimp’s texture, the pasta, its wrongness.
Fought to stay present as he held his wife’s hand.
Someday he might tell the story of pasta with shrimp, but tonight was not that night.
Yet he didn’t forget it until his wife’s hand was replaced by another, small enough to be swallowed by his.
It wasn’t shrimp’s night.
Not this shrimp.
Not this pasta.
Definitely not the night he met his daughter.
Story #2 of Zero Draft
Behind the Draft
Sadly, this story is based on a very real shrimp and a very real pasta. Clearly, it was not as forgettable as I hoped.
Thankfully, it was far from the most memorable part of the night I had it.
This one’s for my daughter.
STAY IN THE LOOP.
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