Mister Wiggins.

This was written for an activity that someone in the Fiction Collective came up with. We had to come up with a story revolving around three key events:

1. Mr. Wiggins enters an antique shop.
2. Mr. Wiggins eats an ice cream cone from a bowl.
3. Mr. Wiggins dies.

Here's what I churned out:

Mister Wiggins was a very naïve man. He never discounted what anyone would say, ever. He believed everything. One day, he was on stroll and came upon an antique shop. He had always noticed it, but today he decided to explore its insides. As he perused the various trinkets, he came upon a bowl wrapped in plastic. The bowl appeared to be ceramic, with swirls of dark brown and red mixed into the clay. It was glazed and gave a shiny reflection through the plastic wrapping. There was no price on it.

Mister Wiggins was intrigued by this artifact and decided to purchase it. He approached the sales counter and inquired as to its price.

“Ah, for that I am wiling to negotiate,” said the clerk. His eyes narrowed and a devilish grin cut a slit across his face.

“I will give you ten dollars for it.” The clerk was dissatisfied.

“You will need to haggle higher than that,” he replied. “One-hundred dollars.”

“Is it worth so much?” Mister Wiggins inquired with a raised eyebrow and an innocent look of curiosity.

“Oh, most assuredly. It comes from an ancient South American tribe.”

“Which one?”

“The most prominent one.”

“Oooohh…” Mister Wiggins could not contain his excitement further. He set the bowl upon the counter and pulled his wallet from his back pocket and removed a hundred-dollar bill from within. He slapped it firmly onto the counter and grabbed the bowl once more.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” the clerk declared. “Is there anything else you’d like to purchase?”

“No, no. This took everything I had.” And with that, Mister Wiggins departed from the antique store, quite pleased that he had decided to visit.

Mister Wiggins returned home that afternoon and had an atypical craving for ice cream.

“Hm, I’ll use that new bowl,” he thought. He set the bowl onto the kitchen counter and opened the freezer to retrieve his bucket of neopolitan ice cream. He could never decide which flavor to buy at the store, so he always just bought all three. He scooped even amounts of chocolate and vanilla into the bowl, with a little more strawberry, as that was his favorite.

He procured a spoon and began to dig into the treat by tiny bits at a time until all that remained was milk. He scraped the spoon across the bottom and slurped up what was left.

“Mm, delectable,” Mister Wiggins said with great satisfaction. He placed the bowl into the sink and filled it with water and left it to soak as he retreated to his living room. He took a seat upon the couch and turned on the television using his universal remote control, as he had long ago lost the original.

As he flipped through the channels, Mister Wiggins began to feel a bit uneasy. His stomach was aflutter and his head was growing hot. He settled the television on the History Channel and went into the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and noted that his face was quite pale. Upon raising his shirt, he could see that his belly was red. He stared at himself, astonished and confused.

“How did this come about, suddenly?” he asked aloud before opening the medicine cabinet and taking the bottle of Pepto-Bismol. “This should do it.” But before he could finish filling the tiny plastic cup, he dropped it as his hand muscles suddenly retracted. “What the devil?” He bent over to pick it up when suddenly a very violent sensation washed over him and he vomited all over the bathroom floor, heaving and gagging for a full minute. “My gracious!” he cried in pain. When he had finally wiped the tears from his eyes, he could see that the regurgitation was a vibrant red and looked very familiar to Mister Wiggins. “Is that my—“ he tried to say before another session of vomit possessed him, this time for two minutes. He collapsed sideways onto the floor, splattering his face in the mess on the floor. “Oh, my…”

Mister Wiggins promptly vomited seven more excruciating times before finally succumbing to death. He was discovered three weeks later when his sister came to visit after having not heard from him in a while. After her dear brother’s funeral, she had decided to clean his house when she found the antique bowl that he had bought shortly before his death.

“Hm, what a lovely bowl…”