The Pearfect Storm, Chapter 4: Whistling in the Dark

Chapter 4 of my 7th stuck story, The Pearfect Storm.

CHAPTER 4: WHISTLING IN THE DARK

No sooner did Julie open the refrigerator than the whole house went dark.

The news had warned of rolling blackouts to protect the grid during the storms, but she hadn’t expected them so soon.

Despite it being daytime, the storm overhead made it as dark as dusk. Julie lit a candle and threw on her too small bathrobe over her still wet body.

“Quick! Better eat the ice cream before it melts!” She laughed to herself, opening the freezer and taking out a half gallon tub before quickly closing it again to keep the cold in.

She pressed her great belly against the counter and leaned into it like a pillow and ate the ice cream straight from the carton. Before the storms she been trying to break her habit of eating directly from the carton in the hopes of extending a half gallon tub longer than one sitting. But during a storm power outage she felt like it was her duty to not let food go to waste.

The summer before last, the ice cream shop near her old apartment lost power during the heatwave and was giving away ice cream before it all melted. They called her a hero for how much she ate, it was one of her proudest moments.

CRACK

Lightning flashed outside the dark apartment.

“EEEEE!” Julie ducked behind the counter. Childhood memories of her mom telling her to stay away from windows during lightning storms filled her head. She grabbed the carton and flopped onto the floor in the narrow space between the kitchen and her island counter. She leaned against the wall and rested the cold carton on her belly, “oooo!”

The lightning lit up the sky again.

“No you can’t have any ice cream, go away, leave me alone,” Julie was amusing herself.

SCRAPE

She hit the bottom of the carton sooner than she’d expected.

“Oh boo, that wasn’t nearly enough ice cream.”

She licked her spoon, “who knows when the power will come back, better not risk it!”

She rocked herself to one side, thinking she might just turn and get up to go back to the freezer for more ice cream. But she found the island counter pressed up against her hip on that side, “no not that way.”

She tried the other direction, but immediately met resistance with the kitchen pressed against her other hip, “not that way either, oh poof.”

She put a hand up on each counter and and bent her knees, bringing her feet in close and heaving herself “up!”

Her arms and legs shook from exertion, her fat upper arms and thighs jiggling, but she was still on the ground, too heavy to lift, she thrust her hips forward hoping to propel herself upward “-si!”

“daisy!” Julie collapsed back down, out of breath, face red.

Back against the wall with her hips pressed against either counter and her legs sprawled out in front of her, Julie rested her hands on her belly as it rose and fell with her breath, and rippled with her giggling, “not again!”

“I cannot be trusted with weed, this is ridiculous,” Julie lamented as she scooted her butt towards the exit of her kitchen.

She twisted and pushed against the wall and inched with her legs. There was no room to maneuver as she bumped the cabinets on either side of her. The giggles simultaneously impeded her momentum and also helped her along because the laughter gave her energy for such the slow tedious task of inching across her kitchen floor.

Splayed across the tile she felt the corner of the counter with her feet, almost there!

Getting her legs out from between the counters allowed her to twist onto her side and then her belly which got her to her knees and then her feet.

Out of breath and sweating she leaned agains the island counter.

“Well that deserves another ice cream.”

She waddled to the freezer and got another half gallon carton, opting to take it to her bedroom to watch cartoons while she polished it off.