Fiction: Personal Ad

I have never made a habit of reading the personal ads, so I missed the original publication. I learned of it quickly enough, of course, what with the entire city buzzing about it within hours of the Herald’s hitting the streets.“WANTED: Partner for suicide pact. Serious inquiries only. Respond to Box H3419.”

My husband, Murray, was the Herald’s editor then, and he was obliged to assign a reporter to tell the outraged world why the Herald accepted the advertisement.

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Fiction: Bobblehead

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.

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Fiction: The Fish Knife

Hector Selrymple, Lord Broodinwood, bit the inside of his upper lip, just to the left of his canines. It was the fifth time in three days he had done so during a meal, and he was suddenly seized with the judgment that this was no sort of life to continue.

His grunt of pain was swiftly followed by action: his left hand swooped down to the place setting and snatched up the fish knife. It was, by the standards of the knowledgeable would-be suicide, a poor instrument for the purpose; the earl, in his anguish, was prepared to overlook any deficiency and make the best go of it he could.

He raised the knife toward his throat and was stopped only by his wife’s horrified gasp. Hector warred with himself and the pain in his mouth. He surrendered to yet another of the cruelties of mortal existence and gently placed the fish knife on the side of his plate. He took two sips of white wine and sighed, prepared once more to meet a world of misery and injustice as it came.

Beatrice, Lady Broodinwood, looked down at her plate and composed herself before continuing to dine. She shook her head just slightly, deeply unnerved by the scene.

How she longed for Shurlton, the butler, to return from his holiday. The biscuit-headed girl deputizing for him had no notion of consistency in setting the table. Anyone of sense knew the fish knife was correctly placed to the right of the plate and not the left, where the Earl had found it. Lady Broodinwood feared what fresh horrors lay ahead before Shurlton was back in harness. God had scarcely tested Job more harshly.

Fiction: Time in a Bottle

With a respectful nod to the late, great Jim Croce for the title

The door to the bar opened, spilling a little fresh air and a gringo inside.

A few of the locals looked up from their beers and their cards to study the gringo. He was young but not a boy. He was nicely dressed but not expensively. He was clean but he had been sweating in the southwestern heat. He was not one of them, but the pain in his eyes made him an honorary citizen of their little bar so they left him alone.

The gringo took a stool at the bar, leaving a few polite open spaces between himself and the other man sitting there.

“Una cerveza, por favor,” the gringo said. The bartender nodded his graying head and produced a lightly chilled bottle of beer. The gringo stared at it for a long time. At last he spoke quietly: “All the time I have left is in this bottle.” He picked up the beer and downed half of it.

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Fiction: Rearview Mirror

Lewis had worked out a simple plan: Load the old propane tank on the ton truck. Back over the gas pump by the old barn. The truck’s hot tailpipe and some fortunate sparks ignite both the gasoline storage tank and the fume-filled propane tank. Half the farm goes up in a massive explosion.

It should be a quick death, he figured, and best of all it would look like an accident; the insurance company would pay off.

Lorna would be at work at the diner, and Sarah would be in school. They wouldn’t get hurt, and they wouldn’t be around to see it happen. He’d sent them both off that morning with smiles and hugs and kisses, so there would be no reason to suspect he’d taken his own life. And they’d have a last happy memory of him.

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Fiction: Bridging the Years

Felisha walked out to the middle of the bridge’s pedestrian sidewalk. She looked over the edge into the blackness far below. There wasn’t much to see of the river at a quarter to midnight, but she could hear it.

As she threw one leg over the railing, a single car lit her briefly as it crossed. She paid no attention to it and didn’t notice that the car came to a stop at the first opportunity on the other side. Nor did she notice the man who got out of the car and began walking toward her.

She swung her other leg over the railing. She faced the bridge with her feet still on the walkway and her hands on the cold metal but her entire body on the wrong side of safety.

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