Prompt: Write about an elderly woman who loves to sing even though she can't do it well

Mabel Stokes followed her normal routine that brought her to the gas station at Adair and Main that in its heyday belonged to Fred Beams; now some foreign fellow she couldn't even understand smiled from behind the counter of the Texaco Quick Mart. It was an easy place to get in and out of and these days anything that was easy was well worth whatever other inconvenience might come with it. Smiling at the attendant behind the counter was fairly easy. Resisting the urge to strike up a conversation about his family and kids was not.

Mabel slid the plastic slinky-type wrist band of her keychain over her left wrist and heard the keys clank like a melody from a triangle. Then there was the clunk of the gasoline cover when it hit its hinge and stayed open. The creaky crank of the gas cap when she removed it. Everything was joining together like a background band. The morning was glorious--a few high clouds, no wind and unusually cool for almost July. How could a person not sing?

She tried not to for the most part. Her sultry alto voice had fallen into a flat and dismal thing with her age. Mabel reddened just a bit at the memory of when she first discovered that she no longer sounded like she had in high school and college. They had been invited to karaoke night at a friend's house and it was the first--and last--time she'd eagerly embraced a new-generation gadget. Mabel still felt the excitement that coursed through her veins as she anticipated a whole nights' worth of melody and harmony. There was nothing that made her heart swell with joy quite the way that singing did and she poured that same heart out into her songs that night. Everyone was laughing because she and her hubby and the rest of their gray haired (or bald) friends did some pretty crazy stuff. She felt like she was 20 again. She had had no idea that they were laughing at her voice until someone gave her a recording as a gift.

Some gift.

That same swollen heart withered inside her when she listened to the notes crack and split over her vocal cords. How could she have possibly not heard it herself? Mabel had always prided herself on acting her age and knowing her limitations, but she never dreamed that those limitations would ever include her voice of all things.

She pulled herself back to the present and started the pump, thanks to the Middle Eastern accent that spoke from within it like the Wizard of Oz asking if she needed assistance. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to communicate that she did not, other than getting the pump started. The gas coursed in fits and spurts, an uncanny rhythm that reminded her of Sinatra's New York, New York. Mabel took a quick glance around. No one else was about at 6:00 AM and if Omar at the counter minded she didn't really care.

She belted out the tune until the tank was full and she grabbed her coffee cup and made her way inside to pay. Even then she was still humming. Life was just to short to worry about some things.