Master Inventor

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the line: "How much did you pay for this?"

Master Inventor

"Dinner's ready," yelled Thelma towards the general direction of the garage.

Nothing, other than the sound of hammering and the occasional swear word.

Damn it, she thought, what's he up to this time?

She opened the door to the garage only to find that the typical mess had grown substantially. In the middle sat her wayward inventor, working on his latest project.

"I said dinner's ready," she said trying to keep her voice level. She knew that getting angry would not help. Once he got started on one of his little projects, he tended to lose track of everything else.

"What? Yes, I agree completely," he said without looking up; hoping vaguely that he'd responded appropriately to whatever Thelma was on about.

Thelma walked in and took his beard in her hand. She then gently pulled his head around until she was sure she had his complete attention.

"Dinner – you interested or not."

"Soon, my little pumpkin. I'm just about finished here." He said nervously to the scowl now about two inches from his face.

"How much did you pay for this?" she asked gesturing to his latest creation. He seemed to think money grew on trees.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed. "That's the beauty of it. I made it from spare junk I had laying around."

"And what, pray tell, does it do?" she asked.

He thought for a moment and then admitted, "Nothing really. In fact, I can't hardly get it to work at all."

Thelma could see the disappointment in his face.

"Tell you what, go put it with the other stuff and come have some dinner."

He picked up the giant orb and walked to the open back door.

"I shall call you Earth," God said before tossing it into the universe and then hurrying in to dinner.

Word Count 300