June 2024 Flash Lit 1.3 - Orange

“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” Mel finished, laughing maniacally.

Raya rolled her eyes.  “Are you, like, five?”

 

“It’s a classic knock knock joke,” Mel said, still giggling.

 

“Ah, yes, that peak of intellectual humor, the knock knock joke,” Raya said.

 

Mel stopped laughing.  She had done it again, made a fool of herself.  Now she was going to be alone, again, having alienated her only friend.

 

Raya saw the crumpled look on Mel’s face.  She sighed inside.  She had forgotten that Mel was so fragile, because she didn’t look fragile—thin and strong as a steel cable physically, with spiky hair and perfect dark eyeliner.  No one at their small-town pastel high school knew what to make of Mel, didn’t want to approach her.

 

But Raya had because that was what Raya did.  At home she had a crow that couldn’t fly due to a broken wing (named Sunshine, of course), a runt of a puppy she’d adopted when no one else would take her (Godzilla, to grow into), and a pair of kittens she’d found under a bush (Keith Richards and Betty White, for long life).

 

“Knock knock,” Raya said, encouragingly.

 

“Who’s there?” Mel said, perking up.

 

“Interrupting cow.”  And as Mel started to ask, Raya mooed as loudly as she could.

 

Mel laughed.