Sunday Story: Ineluctable

Ineluctable- unable to be resisted or avoided

Ex: An ineluctable dessert cart was wheeled in front of their table. On it were various cakes, cookies, pies, and pastries of the cream-stuffed and flaky variety. He was sober now, and his only remaining vice was sugar. “Honey, pass me the duffel bag” he commanded his wife. He dipped his fingers in the hot liquid wax of the table centerpiece candle and flicked the magma into the face of the waiter. The waiter grabbed his face with his hands, leaving the cart unmanned. While the waiter was impaired, the man opened up the duffel and swiped his hand across the cart, tipping all of the desserts into the unzipped opening.

“Go, go!” He instructed his wife as they both rose from the table and sprinted towards the restaurant’s exit. On the way out, the man swiped a chocolate croissant out of a diner’s hand and crammed it into his mouth. He barked a few more inaudible instructions at his wife through the pastry clenched in his teeth. She didn’t quite understand specifically what he meant, but she followed after him as he booked it through the parking lot and across the plaza into a Hertz car rental.

At the front desk, he unzipped the duffel bag, took out a rock solid oatmeal raisin cookie, and backhanded the attend sitting there, knocking him out cold. He grabbed a pair of keys off the desk and they made a run for the rental car lot behind the building. He held up the key fab and frantically pressed the unlock button, while she scanned the lot to see which car was responding to the signal. They finally saw a red Nissan cube in the back corner of the lot’s lights flicker on and off.

“Honey, that won’t cut it”

“What do you mean that won’t cut it!?? Babe the cops might be here any second. We don’t have a choice!”

“Honey, I can’t be seen driving a Nissan cube! Are you insane! Do you know how much shit I’d get from my friends if they saw me peel out of here in a goddamn Roblox car?”

“What the hell babe!? Swallow your pride! Well, if you won’t drive it, I’ll drive it! Here, give me the keys.”

“Honey, I can’t ride in a cube. Period. As in I refuse to be a passenger in one either.”

“So you’re saying..”

“Yes, go without me. I’m going down with the ship.”

Sirens wail as cop cars pull up in front of the Hertz. The wife drives through a padlocked barbed-wire topped gate like she’s in grand theft auto. The husband takes a seat on the pavement and opens up his bag. He mushes together a slice of carrot cake and a baklava and slams it into his mouth.

The cops run into the lot, followed by the waiter from the restaurant, who is now wearing an eye patch. He points to the man with the bag and yells, “That’s him!” as if the cops were somehow going to see the guy manically eating desserts in front of them, scratch their heads, and go, “Him? You really think so? I say we keep looking for another guy also within 50 feet of the restaurant with a Denny’s brand duffel bag that he unlocked with rewards points that he accumulated from eating grand slams biweekly for the last 12 years.”

The cops and the waiter rush towards the man, who is still chewing away, eyes rolled back into his head in a baked-good-induced bliss. The cops and the waiter stop and look to their left. A particularly ugly, un-aerodynamic red box is veering towards them at incredible speed. The waiter stares the car down and begins to say, “We should probably get out of here. That Lego monstrosity is barreling towards us!” but his depth perception is non-existent thanks to his badly burnt eye. The car is only a few feet away.

Before they can move, the red box smashes through another section of the gate and runs over the cops and the waiter. The driver’s husband puts his hands on his head in disbelief.

“OH MY GOD. HONEY. OH MY GOD. WHAT? NO! WHY?”

The driver climbs out of the car and looks—stunned—at the bodies strewn out in front of her.

“I DON’T KNOW BABE! I DON’T KNOW! I thought this is what you wanted! Is this not what you wanted?”

“Honey, what the fuck!? No, this is not what I wanted! I’m not a murderer, I’m a fucking pastry thief!”

“But, I just thought…what you said in the restaurant as we were running out of there…that, that wasn’t what you said?”

“Honey. You want to know what I said? Do you REALLY want to know what I said?”

“Oh babe, what did you say? What did you say!?”

“I said ‘mmm, dark chocolate’. As in, inside of the croissant that I had just taken a bite of. It was filled with dark chocolate. Which was an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise.”

“Oof.”

“Oof indeed, honey. Oof indeed.”

She takes a seat next to him on the gravel. He puts his arm around her. With his free hand, he picks up an éclair and starts to snake it through the air towards her mouth like an airplane while making airplane sound effects. She throws her head back and laughs boisterously, then snaps her head forward and opens her mouth wide. He slowly lowers the chocolate and cream 737 down onto the landing strip. She bites the pastry passionately. He leans into her ear and whispers

“You and me forever, baby.”

She wipes some cream off the corner of his mouth, and responds,

“Like Bonnie and Clyde”