Town Of Treeville - A Series Of Short Stories

Age is but a number. It may inhibit you from doing what you love, but young people may feel old and old people might feel young. After all, all young people will become old, and all old people were once young…

Hespot had lived a fulfilling life, spanning 83 and counting. She was what some would call a 'sticky beak', but Hespot preferred the term curious. Just yesterday, she had witnessed one of her neighbours bringing home a girlfriend!

Why, this reminded her of her younger days, gallivanting around town with her two best friends Betsy and Henrietta. Sadly, Henrietta had died 6 years ago from bowel cancer. How she missed that old crony…

The town of Treeville didn't contain much back in those days, sparsely dotted with the occasional house, a rusting gas station, a convenience store and a single school. Oh, and a pub. Every town needed a pub, in fact, a town without a pub was not a town at all.

The pub was where Hespot had met her husband. She had been 18, freshly graduated, and heading out to celebrate with her rowdy year group. It was a small group, as they were a small town, with only 42 of them in the grade. They had all downed shots until they were drunk.

Soon, she needed to go to the bathroom, so she drunkenly staggered to where she though the bathrooms were located. Unfortunately, she accidently walked into the staff restricted area behind the bar instead. She was still stumbling around when she was violently knocked into by another person.

Disoriented, she gathered her bearings and glared at the offender, who had fallen to the floor. To her surprise, it was one of her classmates. In fact, it was the nerd who had been crushing on her for some time, Orin. He probably thought that his glances weren't obvious, but Hespot could always feel his gaze bore into the back of her head. Of course, she preened at the attention, but it could get a little creepy at times.

Orin looked up too, eyes brightening when he saw Hespot standing there. "Hello Hespot, fancy meeting you here! Were you looking for me?" he asked. At least, that's what she thought he said. It was a bit hard to tell through his slurred, drunken tone.

Suddenly, Orin's arm shot out, his hand groping around in Hespot's general area before finally finding purchase on her arm. "Hey! What are you doing?" cried Hespot, "Somebody, help! Betsy! Henri! Anyone!" She struggled, trying to escape, but she couldn't shrug off Orin's iron tight grip on her arm.

As he started trying to drag her away, a tall stranger came over and pried his grip off Hespot. "Oi, what are ya doing to this lady?" The stranger growled, scowling threateningly at Orin.

Startled, Orin squeaked, before scrambling to his feet and promptly running away as fast as his pudgy little legs could carry him.

"Hey, are you okay? Do you need me to catch that creep for you?" The deep, melodious voice of the tall stranger registered in Hespot's ears, and she looked up to see a handsome man, around his early 20s, gazing concernedly at her.

Instantly, she forgot about what happened, instead focusing on her new goal; getting this drool-worthy hottie to be her boyfriend!