Fiction: Canoe on the Roof

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are supplied by Hilary Melton-Butcher and posted at River's blog over here. This week's prompts are: baker, canoe, gable, training, rot and/or lily-livered, provisions, barley, arrow, border. Optional prompt: Charlotte's color of the month Razzmatazz.

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Fiction: Canoe on the Roof
Mr. Huckleberry Baker's mind was elsewhere when he climbed the ladder toward the roof of his house. On the front end of his gable roof and sitting on the side of the ridge was a canoe. He hadn't a clue who put it there but he wanted it gone. 
    Mr. Baker had little knowledge of roofs so when his left foot sank and created a hole in his roof, he wondered, 'Should it rotted through like that?' It wasn't safe to continue. With his foot bare and a bit tender having to struggle out of the hole, Mr. Baker stood and proceeded back toward the ladder but was hit with dizziness and double vision. He sat down on the ridge and slowly his dizziness faded and his vision cleared. He wasn't lily-livered except when it came to heights which he often forgot about.
    How normal his day had been. This morning, after he ate two toasts with a cup of hot barley tea, he entered his home office and started work. For almost two decades, Mr. Baker wrote manuals for machines and gadgets. He had no training but he knew how things work by studying them. 
    While he was marveling at his masterpiece for a multi-propose blender, the phone rang. Automatically he picked up the receiver and said, "Hello."
    "Hello, Mr. Baker. Do you know you have a canoe on your roof?" Miss Hart was his next door neighbor who was inquisitive about everything.
    Mr. Baker's immediate respond was, 'Do not be ridiculous' but he instead said, "Thank you for letting me know, Miss Hart. I will check it out." He returned to work, had a tuna melt and black coffee for lunch, kept working and didn't remember about it until nearly night. 
    He glanced at the canoe two arms stretch from him. The inside was a pale wood but outside was painted razzmatazz, a word Miss Hart used to describe her favorite bright pink hue. On the side, painted in white was Peace Queen with two, white arrows crossed to make an X between them. Last night, he dreamt about a canoe with those exact words. What did they mean?
    Mr. Baker forgot it all when he tried to get off the roof but as he stood up, dizziness and double vision kept him down. After the fifth try, he gave up. He pictured his funeral with his parents sobbing while beside them his ex-wife laughing and throwing cash into the air. Without changing his will, any provisions he had wanted to make for his parents wouldn't happen if he die today. 
    From up here, he noted all the houses with their lights off. Everyone was probably at the town's ninety-third anniversary party. It must be 7 by now. The party didn't end until after 10. Across from him, the full moon was hanging like a sculpture in the sky. Its beauty made him think of his accumulated ifs and somedays from his forty-three years of living. Why hadn't he taken more chances? Why hadn't he done more? He thought of Miss Hart. Ever since she moved in next door two yeas ago, she had been dropping by or calling to talk about any old thing but he enjoyed her loquacious roaming.
    After a while, Mr. Baker crawled into the canoe. It was a single person vessel with a wooden ottertail paddle. He lifted the paddle and swung it on the right side and then the left. It was almost natural except he had never canoed before. He pictured paddling toward a wide horizon under a bright sky.
    Before he realized, the canoe was shifting and then gliding down the steep roof, past the border of the sculpt hedges that framed his front path and landed on the grassy lawn with him almost spilling out. The paddle had slipped from his hands, slammed against his front windows and put a hole in one of the panes. He patted himself all over and found he was in one piece and chuckled at his good luck.
    "Good evening, Mr. Baker. Isn't it a bit late for a canoe ride?" Miss Hart was staring down at him with a hint of a smile.
    Mr. Baker got out of the canoe with a hand from Miss Hart. "Thank you, Miss Hart. I was just... practicing." He dusted his clothes.
    "Don't you think it's time you call me Betsy?"
    "Betsy, yes. Why don't you call me Berry." He grinned.
    She glanced at the words on the canoe. "Berry, would you believe I used to be known as the Peace Queen?"
    Mr. Baker's grin widened.

Some things that don't belong in the beginning of ebooks

I'm a linear reader, I go from cover, publishing info/copyrights/credits, the content list, dedication, to the first chapter, right toward the back cover which often do not exist. I don't skip any page even if I don't read them thoroughly because you don't really read a book if you don't at least look at all the pages. I read mostly ebooks (borrowed from my local library) and like paper books, they have mostly the same things in the beginning but on an ereader, it's slightly different. Here are things I think shouldn't be in the beginning of ebooks and one that just needs a little styling (#3). (Note: Not all ebooks have these things but many of them do.)

01 - Praises or reviews of the book — I'm already reading it so why do I have to read reviews and praises before I start the book? Only the book can convince me to read it.

02 - Author's bio & back list — Back in the days, the author bio and their back list is at the end of the book and I have always preferred that. After I finished a book, it's like a treat to read the author's bio and sometimes back list when you want to read more of the author's other books. I never read an author's bio if I didn't finish the book. 

03 - Long chapter titles for content list page — Long chapters titles are a problem with ebooks because you tap or press the screen to turn the page and if you hit one of these chapter list (which are links), you go directly to that chapter. Long chapter titles meant no space around the screen to tap/press an empty area to go to the next page (see example A below). So maybe I can just go click on, for example, Chapter 1 and start reading but I like to see all the content list. 
    I'm not against long chapter titles, I actually like them but maybe they need to be smaller than the chapter number (see example B) or put them inside the book and simply just used Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc (example C). Also flush left text is better than center text but that's a preference.

04 - A preview (usually a future scene) — This just confuses me as sometimes I thought was I starting the book but it was a preview which is also in the book. I think any future scenes shouldn't start the book even if it might peak a reader's interest because it gives readers expectations that takes (sometimes) a long time to meet. If you know you have to read 300 pages of boring stuff to get to that preview, would you even start the book?

05 - An introduction — older books (such as classics) often had introductions which I'm willing to read but sometimes they give spoilers and assumes the readers already read the book - isn't that a good reason to put it at the end of the book? 
    And then there are these introductions by famous authors or famous people which are like love letters to the book or author and they give no new or interesting insights so what's the point? Why should I care about some famous person's opinion about another famous person or their book?

06 - Web link that took up almost an entire page — Once there was a book (two actually) with a page (I think it was about signing up for news or something from the publisher of the book) that kept asking to go to a website when I pressed/tapped to go to the next page and I kept pressing down on the screen at every possible place and it kept asking to go to the website. I experienced this before I learned to navigate my ereader so I must have restarted my ereader at least three or four times just to get out of that page. And I didn't read either book because I was too mad.  
    Only later, did I learn to pressed the very, very bottom corner edge of the screen to get out of such pages. Why would you make an entire page a web link? I have no reason to go to any web link on my ereader, not even to sign up for a free book - it's just something I don't do.

07- Acknowledgements — Acknowledgements is not the dedication but it's like the dedication but extended. So yes, readers might skip this even if it's at the end of the book but readers still can skip this even at the beginning so it might as well be at the end. I think acknowledgements at the end makes more sense because then I cared enough to read those names unlike the beginning of the book where I really had no such care.

What things do you not want in the beginning of books?

Fiction: Gone

This week's optional prompt at Poets and Storytellers United is: a time you surprised yourself. The ending may be a sort of a surprise. I don't know why I went that direction, it just happened. Visit other participants over here.

Fiction: Gone
One hundred feet from the ground, Julia peered down below and then at the man-child beside her. For about half an hour, Ted played games on his phone. 
    Thirteen years ago, Julia was introduced to Ted by common friends at this carnival. Ted thought it was a good idea to ride the rollercoaster to celebrate their engagement but a mechanical failure had stranded them.
    Growing up, Julia had foolishly rebelled on the wrong things and had thought marrying Ted will make up for her mistakes. But ten years of waiting for an engagement had altered her but Ted, he was the same expect the thirty extra pounds.
    It was too late to turn back. Due to his many generosities of lending money to his friends, he earned himself and Julia many debts. When she asked him to get his friends to pay him back, he struck her face, twice. That was the moment she felt like an insect who had been squashed one too many times but still stood in the same place to be squash again and again.
    Slowly, Ted turned away from his phone screen and looked up at her, eyes blinking slowly. He began to hunker down and the phone slipped from his hands and struck against her feet. When she glanced up, Ted was gone but there was a fat fly squatting on the leather seat and it seemed to be gazing at her. Haphazardly, it flew up and away into the dull afternoon sky.
    A sudden drop and the rollercoaster started turning. On the ground, Julia stumbled out of her seat. Clementine, Julia's friend, rushed toward her and said, "I'm glad you're alright. Wasn't Ted with you?"
    Julia shook her head and shrugged. What could she say that didn't sound mad?     
    About nine minutes on the way home with Clementine driving, she exclaimed, "What the heck! That is one chubby fly."
    On the windshield was a fat fly and it seemed to be staring at Julia. Clementine turned on the wipers but the fly didn't move quick enough. A short smear of red was left on the windshield but another swipe and it was gone.