Becoming Hemingway

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words: humid, sweltering, complain

Becoming Hemingway

“It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity,” quipped the waiter; smiling at his wit as his hand asked for a tip.

If Josh heard that one more time, there was going to be trouble. Not that trouble was a bad thing. Being rough around the edges was all part of becoming – Him.

He tossed the cabana-boy a wadded dollar bill and said, “Get the fuck out of here.”

Taking a deep drag from the fresh bottle of Scotch, he looked out at waters of Key West. The lack of wind belied the apparent mild temperature of the day.

Damn doldrums. It’s not just humid out here. It’s fucking sweltering. Josh turned towards the cabin, exposing the back of his sweat-stained shirt to the promise of serenity offered by the small waves lapping whisper-like against the shore.

He didn’t want peace of mind.

Josh wanted to suffer.

Back inside, a typewriter taunted him from a small table. No computers here. No cell phones either. Electricity was his only luxury; that and a direct phone line to the bar.

He wasn’t about to complain. In fact, this is just the way he wanted it. Suffering was part of the game; part of becoming Him. All truly great artists suffer.

Josh intended to be great.

He sat down at the table and scrolled a piece of paper into the old machine.

His mind flipped through his time in Africa and that stint as an ambulance driver in WWI. He recalled past loves; some of whom became ex-wives.

None of those things actually happened to Josh, but that didn’t matter. The mind can’t tell the difference between a real memory and an imagined one.

Soon, the words began to flow.

Pausing only to take a drag from his bottle; Josh was on his way.

Word count 300