Meal Interruptions

She stood on the badly shingled rooftop, cold rain drops beating down on her pale skin, soaking through her torn jeans and ratty t-shirt. She stared out at the dull neighborhood which lay beneath her. Cars always occupied the four lane road and someone could always be spotted beneath the light of the street lamps.

A convenient store stood only four driveways down and a small plaza just beyond that causing traffic of all kinds to buzz past her. So it would be safe to assume that someone would notice if anything out of the ordinary was to occur, say for instance a small woman standing on a rooftop in the rain.

Though as she stood on the badly shingled rooftop in the pouring rain, drenched to the bone, no one uttered a word. Cars still sailed past exhaling their toxic fumes, people still stood under street lamps, and the convenient store was always open, though no one mentioned the girl on the rooftop.

She stood on the rooftop in the pouring rain for four days.

On the fifth day lightening struck the rooftop and the bolts rushed through her and still no one noticed. The electricity ran through her for four hours, shaking her small worn body like a rag doll and when it finally dropped her back onto the rooftop she fell through and landed on her family’s dinner table.

The girl lay there, burnt to a crisp upon their well filled plates and finally someone noticed. The head of the table stood and tossed his serviette on top of her blackened face and remarked, “Well now my dinner’s ruined.”