Sentence 5

Here's the fifth sentence story sent to me by T. The original sentence was: "Filled with a mixture of dread and anticipation, he took a deep breath and opened the door."

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With a tray balanced in one hand, Martin smoothed the lapel of his white jacket. He touched the bow tie but didn't move it, the gesture merely ritual. The glasses on the tray rattled against one another as he shifted his shoulders under the coat. The motion made him aware of his damp underarms.

A wave of panic rose up his throat and threatened to jump out his mouth on the heels of a deli sandwich he had grabbed and gobbled in haste before his shift. A quick glance, however, assured him that the sweat had not gotten through the jacket. From the neck down he was still a calm and composed waiter. With an effort Martin forced his face into relaxed lines. By concentrating on smoothing his forehead the rest of his features were fooled into complacency.

He was ready. This time it would be different.

"This time," he murmured aloud, "it will be different."

Filled with a mixture of dread and anticipation, he took a deep breath and opened the door. In two steps Martin tripped on a diner's foot and his whole body shot forward. The tray went into the air, the delicate glasses floating above it, momentarily unaware of gravity and beautiful in their ignorance. Stretched to his full length, Martin thumped onto the ground, his hands clawing forward but the tray was far, far out of reach. It clattered to the ground a second before the glasses, the colored liquids in them catching the light prettily, as they smashed cruelly onto the hardwood floor.

Dainty in flight, they were now ugly and dangerous wrecks. Staggering to his feet Martin could only hear a roaring thud in his ears. He lunged, too soon, at the mess and plowed into the lap of a female diner, his head ducking under her skirt and colliding rudely with a surprisingly yellow floral print material.

Martin's legs were still concerned with reaching the tray and kept pumping even as his neck whipped back to extricate his face. The skirt prevented this and the sudden swing up combined with the push forward dumped the chair onto its back, the occupant still seated.

This did free Martin's head, but exposed the floral print to the entire restaurant. Thinking quickly, Martin grabbed the table cloth and yanked it to cover the woman's weakly kicking legs. This had the desired effect but he hadn't thought about the woman's companion, who had ordered soup.

The bowl tipped and splashed into the companion's lap, causing him to leap to his feet, flailing his hands at the hot mess on the front of his pants. This knocked his chair into another table of diners, and his hands struck another waiter who was carrying a lit chafing dish.

One minute and twenty four seconds later Martin was standing in a ring of culinary disaster, his hands clutching one end of the forgotten table cloth.

A man with a fondue fork stuck in his arm was glaring at him. Two women, each with hollandaise sauce blanketing once-immaculate hairstyles, consoled each other and dabbed uselessly at their heads with napkins. The maitre'd had said nothing to Martin but this was obviously due to his having been struck unconscious by an airborne salami chub. It had had an impressive flight from the open kitchen door to the front podium which was cut short by the man's head. Most of the small fires were under control but the bartender was having some trouble with a blaze that had reached the aperitifs. The wine steward sobbed over the shattered remains of a '62. The pastry cart had been violently overturned, the custard and fruit fillings spattered across a wall like the leavings of a sweet slaughterhouse.

A small dog was licking Martin's shoe clean of the au jus from table four's beef dish. Peter, a busboy from Martin's section, approached.

"At least this time," he said as he dusted powdered sugar from his face, "I didn't get hit with the shrimp cocktail." Martin dropped the corner of the table cloth. "I'm allergic."