Your Story 34 Winner: Momma's Boy
Prompt: "You won't believe what came in the mail today."
Once again, you've made the Your Story competition a success. Thanks to everyone who participated in the competition (either by entering, reading or voting).
Out of more than 400 entries readers helped us pick "Momma's Boy" by David Greene as the winner. For winning, Greene's story will appear in an upcoming issue of Writer's Digest.
Winning Entry
"Momma's Boy"
by David Greene
“You won't believe what came in the mail today,” said the wolf with disdain, crossing his hairy legs.
“I'm in no mood for guessing games, Walter, just tell me.” Phyllis looked over the top of her reading glasses at her son, fanning through the remaining mail she'd found on the table by the door. Seeing only bills, she tossed the pile down with disgust equal to her son's. Limping toward the sofa, Phyllis moaned as she eased herself onto the worn cushions. An observant visitor would notice the sagging couch had a perfect indentation to match Walter's large frame.
“It seems that my incident last wee--”
“Wait!” Phyllis sniffed the air, her wet nose twitching with irritation. “Walter, are we having mutton yet again?”
“Yes Mother, stewed with chantrels.”
“You couldn't even manage some lamb? Are the wee sheep too much for you these days? I work all week and the sum of what you can obtain for us is an infirm, wool-covered pigeon?”
Walter dropped his pointy face and shifted his dull looking eyes toward the ceiling. “The dogs are extra alert these days. And McCullum has taken to sitting behind the stone fence with a shooting iron.”
“Excuses!” his mother spat back. “Did you at least save me the kidneys?”
Walter's head dropped even further down his chest and his eyes now followed. “I had 'em for lunch,” he said just above a whisper.
“Perfect!” she snarled.
“I'll fix you a plate. It's nice and hot, Mother.” He stood, scratching his rump, the cheeriness in his voice sounding phony even to him.
“Not yet. You'll sit and tell me what came in the mail today,” she ordered.
“Well,” he stuttered, his paws knitting as if they held needles. “It seems that my difficulties with the, ….ah,.... young lady, are not quite as resolved as we thought. She had her lawyer send another notice. He says I am not to approach within...” Walter fumbled among the items on the shelf beside his chair for the letter. Finding it, he flipped to the second page. “Ummm, 2,000 feet. Yes, two thousand feet, - nearly half a mile!”
“I should've eaten her mother when I had the opportunity,” Phyllis responded in a regretful tone. “'Would have saved us a lot of bother today. Same as her horrid child in her grimy crimson cape, she was. Whiny, and all bones. That's all that stopped me, her bloody lack of meat, I swear.”
“I forage near her grandmother's house,” Walter sniveled, trying to justify his actions. “It's where I got the mushrooms to go in the sauce for the mutton.” Brow over-furrowed like a bad actor, he continued attempting to elicit some sympathy. “Enjoy tonight's supper mother. It'll be the last with any extra tidbits.”
Still surveying her son over the top of the reading glasses she rarely removed, Phyllis Canis-Lupis sat upright and placed her back paws on the floor and patted her lap.
“Come. Sit here with your momma.” Walter watched as his mother's mood change faster than he'd gobbled the kidneys.
The fully-grown but childish wolf approached and dropped his bulk upon his smaller mother. Scratching his back gently with her thorn-sharp nails, Phyllis whispered softly into Walter's pointed ear, “There, there. Momma will think of something. Have no fear.”
Phyllis drew ever-decreasing circles with her paw on her son's back as she overworked her brain for a scheme. After several minutes of her soothing, distracting massage, she made her pronouncement.
“Aha! I've got it!”
Much as he was enjoying his mother's attention, Walter bolted from her lap.
“Do tell, Mother! Quickly!”
“We shall do exactly as you were ordered,” she said smugly. “Your daily travels will now keep you far from those harassing humans. All this bother has put me off eating them anyway. Even the best of them taste of rancid pears. I've just remembered something Edith told me at work today. We can move on to new pastures, as they say.”
“And that is.....?” Walter asked, his voice rising in anticipation.
“In the valley, by the weasel’s playground, there is a home that was recently built. Ill conceived and poorly constructed, I am told. Let's just say, it's three tenants put me in the mood for a good roast pork.”
