One Word Narratives

Supercalifragilisticexpidalidocious - Submitted by Kassandra

"That's a stupid fucking phrase," Allison spat, setting her bottle down a little too hard on the iron table between them.
"What? What's wrong with that?"
"Well, I mean...what the fuck? How does that have anything to do with what we were talking about?"
Serena ran her fingers through her short black hair and took a sip of her tea, considering how to respond.
"Well," she said. "I just thought a little whimsy would divert the tension."
"But how does that respond to anything I've been saying?"
"It's all just a matter of perspective, Allie, you always have to haveperspective."
Allison felt a swell of anger, knew that she ought to just shut her damnedmouth and not press the issue, but felt that overwhelming inability to letsomething unresolved drop forcing words up her throat and into her mouth. Shewas tempted to try and hold them back with her teeth, but knew the fight wasover before it started.
"That again? What, so you're back to calling me a hypocrite? How does that evenstart to support your point?"
"No," Serena replied slowly, trying to keep her voice even and mostlysucceeding. "No, that's not what I was trying to say."
"Then what, exactly, were you trying to say, Rena?"
"Ugh...see, that! All that 'exactly' and 'precisely' and semantics. That's allyou ever focus on. I wasn't trying to say anything specific, I was just tryingto change the subject."
Allison reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table between them, pulledone out, and took a drink of her beer before lighting it. Serena rubbed hereyes with her thumb and forefinger, knowing that this was just a brief lull inthe growing storm.
"It's not all about semantics, but you're the one who tried to call me out andsay my opinion was bullshit."
"Well, I don't know that I think it's bullshit. I just meant I don't agree."
"Okay, but when I asked why, you couldn't really say why. So tell me, why isn'tit a parent's right and responsibility to monitor and make decisions over theirchild's healthcare?"
"Well, when it comes to reproductive health," Serena began.
"A woman's body is her own," Allison spit at her in that mocking tone she usedto make a point.
"Except that it's not. That's why there's age of majoritylaws, restrictions and prohibitions on the choices of minors because they lackexperience."
"Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that on issues like birth control orabortion, it should be the girl's choice, not their parent's or theirpastor's."
"Who the hell said anything about a pastor?"
"But that's the point, Allie. You know these laws are out there not because thegeneral public, but because of the minority of small-minded bigots who willmake decisions about their children's lives because of what their religiousleader says."
"I don't think it's as small a minority as you think, Rena. I think thiscountry is a lot more deeply conservative than liberals like to pretend it is."
"Maybe, but that's neither here nor there. It should be a girl's right tochoose. I mean, how can you disagree when you -" Serena cut herself off,realizing what she'd started to say.
"When I," Allison began, letting it hang there. "Go on, say it. You're a bigmetropolitan, empowered liberal woman, you can say it."
Serena sat there quietly, the only sound between them for a few seconds thedrag and exhalation of smoke from the cigarette in Allison's hand and Serenafiddling with the tea bag wrapper on the table. When she didn't finish thethought for nearly a minute, Alison volunteered to finish it for her.
"When I had an abortion without parental consent when I was 16, right? That'swhat you meant, right?"
Serena looked stared down at the table, grateful that it was still early enoughthat there wasn't a large crowd at the little bistro. She could feel Allisonfuming.
"I just wanted to change the topic, Allie."
"You know, I regret that. It may not be who I am now, Rena, but I regret that Ididn't find out who that child was. Maybe I'm not as liberal as you are, maybeI didn't come out of college all super hippy dippy and believing everythingMother Jones has to say, but that doesn't disqualify my opinion altogether."
"I don't think it does, it's just that sometimes you lock me into thesearguments that I don't want to have."
"You brought it up, Rena!"
"No, I just made a comment about something I had read. I didn't mean to say oneway or another."
"But you called me out on it, then you insinuated I was some kind of ignoranthypocrite."
Serena sighed it into her tea. "I didn't mean to. And I'm sorry if I did," she said.
"Well, the least you could do is finish the discussion. I mean, I'm making allthese points and you sit there just repeating the same crap, call me ahypocrite, then spit out some trite Disney bullshit from the 60s...if you can'tback up your position, then you shouldn't go around challenging others ontheirs."
"All I said was 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."
"Yeah, because you couldn't back up your damned point," Allison sneered.
"No, Allie, because we agreed not to talk about politics or religion overanything but email where we could both take the time to craft our statementsand not get so damned worked up!"
Serena stood up, flushed from the confrontation. She scraped together thevarious papers on the table, the tea bag and wrapper, the plastic wrapping onthe cigarette pack, and a twisted up straw she'd idly stirred her tea with, andcrumpled them up before dropping them in her used tea cup. Walking to thegarbage can near the exit to the patio, she stopped and turned back to Allison,puffing on her cigarette anxiously.
"Allie, I'm going home. If you can let this go, please come home with me andrelax. Otherwise, stay out, get all drunk and pissy, and get in fights withpeople. But if you do, don't crawl into bed when you come home tonight. You canstay on the couch."
With that, Serena dumped the garbage into the can and opened the patio door,stepping out onto the street to head home. Several minutes later, Allisonstamped out what was left of her cigarette, gathered up her belongings, and setoff home after her hippy dippy girlfriend.
Sometimes she wondered if men were as complicated as women, because they hadsure seemed pretty fucking easy to figure out back in high school. Then again,that really wasn't a very good trade-off.