Judd glanced up from the ground he was plowing and saw movement on the river. He let go of the horse’s traces and trudged down to the riverbank.
He glared as an empty rowboat glided smoothly down the middle of the river. For a moment, he thought about letting it go on by, but he grudgingly doffed his boots and swam out to catch the boat and guide it onto dry land.
Posted in fiction
Tagged abandonment, embarrassment, farm, fiction, ingratitude, mail order bride, marriage, rowboat
Karen’s single bag had been checked in. Her purse had been searched, and she had been irradiated to ensure she wasn’t a bomb-laden jihadist. Now she waited for her flight to be called.
I’m finally going to do it, she thought. I’m finally getting away from him.
Roy saw the new Chaffinch’s Almanacs sitting near the cash register. He paid for the odds and ends he was getting at the hardware store and plucked two of the free almanacs from the displays.
Chaffinch’s was the only almanac sexist enough to publish his and hers editions, in blue and pink covers. The women’s edition contained all sorts of stuff about that time of the month and children and homemaking that the men in Chaffinch’s target audience were certain they didn’t need to know.
Roy picked up a pink almanac for Enid so that if she saw him with his blue-covered almanac she couldn’t complain about his not getting her an almanac. Married life was full of little preemptory strikes like that, he mused.
Harry sat alone in the little house. It seemed larger now that Juanita was gone, which Harry liked. When she had lived there, they had fought day in and day out, and the house felt more like clothing that had shrunk in the wash. Now there was room for Harry to swing his arms and breathe deeply.
A car drove by the house. The vibration from the road rattled the old windows just slightly and rocked a little end table. A folded index card under the back leg of the table would have kept it from moving, but Harry had never noticed that the table wobbled.
What Harry did notice was the circus clown bobblehead on the table. It had been Juanita’s, and Harry supposed she had left it as her final gift to him. He didn’t want a farewell gift from Juanita, but a farewell gift had to be treated with respect.
Posted in fiction
Tagged anger, bobblehead, clown, fiction, marriage, separation, suicide, traffic
Stan and Peggy hadn’t taken any food on their trip, so they were hungry from the first day of being snowbound in the blizzard. On the second day, their carefully shepherded supply of cold coffee ran out; they couldn’t gather snow because the electric motors for the windows were frozen. On the third day they ran out of gasoline and could no longer even risk carbon monoxide poisoning to keep warm.
A few hours later, he confessed.
“Peggy,” he stammered in the cold, “I can’t die with this on my conscience. I’ve been having an affair with Lora. It’s been going on for almost five years. I even took her on the Acapulco trip, the one I told you the company wouldn’t let us take spouses on. And your mother’s diamond necklace? The one I said was stolen? I gave it to Lora. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
Peggy just stared at him, too bitterly cold to fully grasp the enormity of his words.
She awoke in the hospital a day later. Turning her head to her left she could see Stan in the next bed. She didn’t remember being rescued, but she did recall Stan’s confession.
She sat up in her bed and gingerly placed her heels on the floor. That didn’t hurt too badly and she hobbled the few steps to Stan’s bed.
“Stan?” she said softly. “Stan? Are you awake?”
“Hmmm?”
He came to consciousness quickly enough when Peggy yanked out his catheter.
Once the screaming had faded to a dull whimper, she told him, “And I’m just getting warmed up.”
Sandra tugged at her ring and eventually got it off of her finger. She threw it at Delbert, who lay wheezing softly on the living room floor. It missed his face but landed in plain sight.
“That little thing isn’t even worth trying to resell,” she growled.
He looked at the ring and remembered how gleeful he had been eighteen years before when he went to Kavalitz’ Jewelry and picked out the nicest wedding ring his budget could withstand. It would have to suffice; the matching engagement ring was far too expensive. Mr. Kavalitz assured Delbert he didn’t mind breaking up the set.
Delbert had taken Sandra out to dinner that night. After they both had declined the waitress’ offer of dessert, Delbert had reached into his suit pocket. “Perhaps I could interest you in this, though.” He opened the box and handed it to Sandra.
He found the note lying on top of his favorite coffee mug.
Dear John,
I’m leaving you for Stephen Kotzenpillar. I can’t stand another minute in our alleged marriage — especially the stale, boring, unimaginative, unexciting, unfulfilling, so-called sex. I want out, and I’m getting out.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I never should have suggested a camping vacation. I’m to blame for everything,” Nathan said.
“Even though that’s true,” Emily said, “you don’t need to play the martyr.”
“Just taking all the credit that’s rightfully mine. I thought this would be fun, like the camping trips my family used to take when I was a kid.”
“You’ve told me about them, endlessly, and if I have to hear one more time about how your mother was the key to making them so wonderful, I will never speak to either of you again.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Try me.”
Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Arevnia, there lived a handsome king and a beautiful queen. Their Serene Majesties lived in a strong, beautiful castle set midway between the top of a beautiful mountain and a beautiful valley with a long, beautiful lake that trailed off beautifully into the distance. And all their people loved them, and they were very happy.
Just not with each other.
Theirs was a match made in, at best, one of Heaven’s slums, where the Protestant work ethic had never taken root. Heaven’s management held to a strict policy of “no comment” on the matter.
They had loved each other well at first, and had gone to the altar full of joy. Shortly thereafter, however, they began to notice little habits and idiosyncracies and one strained nerve led to another, as will happen. Passion’s flame flickered and faded and they then saw each other in the light of cold wax and charred wick and took a dim view of the subject. Rather than live and let live and love, as wiser couples learn to do, King Arvid and Queen Shelly took counsel of General Grant near Spotsylvania Courthouse and fought it out on that line all summer. And into the fall. And winter…
In the light of the full moon on a cloudless night, Ron walked to the middle of the bridge and put one leg over the guardrail, and then the other. He stood on a narrow catwalk meant for the use of painters and inspectors. Ron planned to use it as a launching pad, to launch himself into the deep waters of the Tondoscinewa River and end it all.
He took a deep breath, and released it. Depressed as he was, he thought perhaps he should get right with God before jumping. Of course, jumping itself was guaranteed to get on God’s bad side, and there was no point in asking for forgiveness and then committing the sin. So, no prayer.
Ron took another deep breath, thinking it would be his last. Then he heard the footsteps approaching slowly from the tree-laden far end of the bridge. He blew out the breath and wondered who was coming.
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