Regift by Steve Marc Gerson, apple juice

 

“How you doin’, Marie?” she asked, ignoring the more pressing questions, like since Jim died, since the kids moved from Abilene to God knows where, since Marie’s life had emptied like an apple tree, all of its fruit plucked in the Fall.

“Ha,” Marie laughed like air filling a flat tire.  “I’m working at the thrift store off 23^rd and Elm.”  She paused, pushing a strand of thinning gray hair behind her right ear.  “It ain’t too bad, three days a week, minimum wage and commission, given my limited work experience and my GED, having left school at age 17, pregnant with little Johnny.  I get to see people dream.  Clients come in with their used and torn clothes, hoping for a big consignment.  Customers come in, checking all the coat pockets for a lottery ticket, hoping for a big win.”

“What’s next, girl?” she asked.

“Yeh,” Marie laughed again, this time like a windchime dancing in spring breezes.  “That’s the question, ain’t it.  What’s next?”  Marie removed her glasses to wipe a smudge, pausing to clear her view.  Life holds its secrets close like a dollar fortune teller at the state fair, turban askew, crystal ball purchased wholesale online.  “I’ve got the start of a plan,” she said cryptically. 

Marie would visit Jim.  She’d weave through the headstones like a needle sewing threadbare cloth, renewing its tatters, stand over his marble grave, and remember his gifts:  love, kindness, care.

Around his gravesite, Marie saw the winter’s brown grass turning green in the beginning of spring.

about th euthor

 

Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in many journals plus his six chapbooks: Once Planed Straight; Viral; And the Land Dreams Darkly; The 13th Floor; What Is Isn’t; and There Is a Season.  

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Freedom by Allison Symes, red apple juice

The day the mirror shattered was the day I found my freedom.

I hadn’t asked to be trapped inside that wretched thing. I hadn’t asked to be forced to tell the truth regardless of what question was asked or who asked it. I knew the moment I told Madam she was no longer the fairest in the land she would try to kill Snow White. So it proved. Glad the girl escaped all right. How do I know?

Simple. The moment Snow White was set free from her enchantment - always beware suspiciously red apples by the way, if it’s too red to be natural, there is something wrong - I too was freed. I am a genie, caught by Madam many years ago and put to work inside the mirror, always there to flatter her vanity. I hated every moment of it.

How did she catch me? She made a bet with me. I like a gamble but I lost this. She made the bet with me I couldn’t tell the truth no matter if my life depended on it. I said I could. She said prove it and then trapped me in the mirror.

I then told the truth all of the time of course but she said it was too late. I would only be freed when love set me free. She laughed horribly. She assumed the love would have to be for me. No chance of that with me trapped, was there?

But I guess it proves love can find a way if it wants. It isn’t just Snow White who is now free to live a good life. I’m off now. Not sure what I’ll do yet but I’ve been told by one of the dwarves not to go to Earth or enter their politics. Truth is a rarity there and I would find things hard going. Honesty is ingrained now so he’s probably right I’m best off here in the magical realm.

Wish me luck anyway, won’t you? I’m not nasty. I didn’t want to help Madam. I really couldn’t help myself. Still, I may peep in on the royal wedding and see if I can have some of the cake. I always have been partial to cake. I won’t be touching the apples in the fruit bowl. I bet Snow White doesn’t either!

 

About the author

Allison Symes, who loves quirky fiction, is published by Chapeltown Books, CafeLit, and Bridge House Publishing. She writes for Chandler’s Ford Today and Writers’ Narrative. 

Website: https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/ 

Books: http://author.to/AllisonSymesAuthorCent 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allisonsymes 

Her flash fiction collections are From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic. 

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The Manure Spreader by Jim Bates, apple juice

I watched my cousin with awe along with a little bit of envy.

            “Man, you’ve sure got a way with that shovel.”

            Stevie grinned and waved the stump on his right shoulder. “Yeah. When you’re born with this bad boy, you learn to make the most of things.”

            I bent to my task. We were cleaning out my uncle’s horse barn, shoveling the manure into the spreader we’d towed into the center between the stalls. Getting the spreader there had itself been an adventure.

Stevie had led me into the shed where they kept an ancient, faded orange, Allis-Chalmer’s tractor. “Cool,” I said when I saw it.

My cousin grinned at me. “You want to try it?”

            Me? Drive a tractor? I was ten years old and only a few days earlier had arrived on my aunt and uncle’s farm. I’d been sent there by my mom from our home in the city where I’d been spending the summer at loose ends learning how to become a juvenile delinquent. In short, going nowhere fast. “You serious?”

            “I’m serious, cousin.” He punched me in the arm with what I could only surmise was his way of showing me we were buddies. “Absolutely. Go for it.” When he saw my hesitancy, he added, “It’s okay. I’ll teach you.”

            “Okay!”

            And he did. He showed me how to get the tractor started by turning the key and pushing a button. He showed me how to put it in gear, back it out of the shed, hook it to the spreader, and drive it to the barn where I parked it between the stalls. We each had one side to do, five stalls each, and at our age, Stevie was ten like me, everything was a competition, mostly friendly. In this race, Stevie was kicking my ass.

            Eventually, I stopped and wiped my brow. I was exhausted. “Okay, okay, okay,” I said, setting my three-pronged pitchfork against the side of the second stall from the end. “I give up.”

            Stevie was a stall ahead of me. “Just a second,” he said, grinning over his shoulder. “I’m almost done.”

            “Funny,” I said, collapsing onto a bale of hay. “Real funny.”

            Steve whistled as he worked. He used a small bladed shovel and wielded it with his left arm like a magician with a wand. I hadn’t seen him in two years and in that time, he’d grown taller than me by four inches and out-weighed me by easily thirty pounds. All of it muscle.

            “It’s all in the wrist,” he said, finishing up and sitting next to me. “And the arm, too,” he added, flexing it. “That helps a lot.” He winked at me.

            I used to hate him. He used to be a squirrelly little kid who played with his sister’s dolls. He liked to read. And he didn’t like any of the video games I liked to play. He was just plain weird.

            But I hadn’t seen him in two years, and I guess in that time he’d changed. I know I sure had.

And not for the best.

Earlier that year my dad left home. Mom was having a rough go of it, and I reacted by doing the only thing I knew how to do that didn’t require any particular skill - be a jerk. I began fighting with my younger brother and younger sister all the time. Davey, my best friend, and I started smoking cigarettes and I began sneaking out at night, running around with Davey, his older brother Frank, and Frank’s friend Walt. The night we spray painted a smiley face on a water tower and got caught was the night Mom said, “That’s it, Joe. I’ve had it with you. I’m sending you to your aunt and uncle’s farm. Maybe they can do something with you.”

            “So what?” I yelled. “See if I care!” I added, secretly caring a lot.

I stomped off to my room and slammed the door. Then I burst into tears. Damn. Already I missed her.

            Five days later I was shoveling manure from the horse stalls and hanging out with Stevie. I was learning that he was a good guy. Lots better than I was, that was for sure. I was already sorry for being such a jerk back home.

            After we’d taken a break, Stevie said, “Let's get this stuff spread.”

            “How do we do that?”

            “Come on. I’ll show you.” He clasped me on the shoulder. “It’s fun.”

            It was. Remember, I was ten, but on a farm, everyone was given a lot of responsibility, and spreading the manure was Stevie’s job. Now it was mine, too.

I got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Steve stood behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. I drove us through the doors on the far side of the barn and out to one of the fallow fields where we stopped, letting the tractor idle. Stevie reached back and pulled a lever. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the spreader.

“When we start driving, that spool with those spikes on it spins, catches the manure and flings it out the back.”

            “Far out.”

            He grinned. “Yeah, it is. Let’s go.”

            I shifted into gear and we set to work, spreading that manure. I’ll tell you, for a ten-year-old, born and raised in the city, being outside on a sunny day, driving up and down a farm field in the country with my cousin by my side whistling some obscure rock and roll song, all the while I’m pretending like I know what I was doing, well, it was a pretty good way to go.

            I stayed there all summer. We spread manure every week and it was always fun.

I cleaned up my act, too, when I went home and was lots nicer to my mom and brother and sister.

 And next summer, when they invited me back, I couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough. 

About the author

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. He loves to write! His stories and poems have appeared in over 500 online and print publications. To learn more and to see all of his work, check out his blog at: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

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A Visit to Grandma’s by Jane Spirit, pressed apple juice

Rosie hesitated at the door of her grandmother’s little home on the Deep Woods Estate. She wanted to capture her arrival there for her many admirers. Standing on the threshold she could feel the icy winds that blew through the estate despite the many sheltering trees that surrounded it. She found herself recoiling from residual raindrops that dripped, even on this dry day, off the massive chestnut whose branches were growing ever closer to the bungalow’s wooden facade. Still, Rosie was pleased with the image when she checked it. The wind’s slight ruffling of her trademark scarlet cape and the slight fuzziness added by a water drop on the camera lens had added a touch of mystery to the selfie. Content, Rosie cropped the shot to highlight the little basket of fruit she carried casually over one arm. Thinking that she was lucky to get any kind of signal in this god forsaken forest, she posted the picture. Then came the familiar surge of adrenalin as she saw in her mind’s eye her two thousand followers simultaneously pressing their screens and witnessing her doing her good deed for the day. This was inevitably followed by a dragging sense of uncertainty. How would the image be received? How quickly would her followers swipe their screens in search of something more diverting? Surely this wholesome persona thing could not continue indefinitely.

Then again, she already had plans and would be taking some artfully arranged pictures for her new media account that afternoon. Rosie planned to use those new images to launch herself as a chic interior designer. Her company strap line would be ‘Cabins with attitude’. She had recently completed renovating grandma’s to reflect the current trend for Scandinavian shabby chic. She’d started by knocking down the old dividing walls to create one room out of the space and then added a couple of strategically placed screens instead. Next, she’d installed some brightly painted chairs and rustic tables before distributing mostly faux animal skins to give a cosy effect. Not that her grandmother had shown any great appreciation for what she had done, but then the old woman spent most of her days in bed in the winter waiting for her stock of logs to be replenished by the local woodsman who offered cut price timber in return for cash. In any case, Rosie hadn’t minded doing her bit for her grandmother by transforming the faded chintz decor. And, when she stopped by, she could make use of the off-grid candlelight, snapping her noir self in black and white angled shots taken against the large scroll work mirrors that now festooned the remaining solid interior walls.

Ready for her visit, Rosie let herself in and went straight towards the cabin bed in the far corner of the room to let her grandmother know that she would be taking a few pictures whilst she was there. She sat down briefly on the folksy painted stool by the bed in which grandma appeared to be taking her customary afternoon nap. In any case the patchwork quilts and blankets she liked to use to warm herself had been pulled up high above her chin obscuring her face, so that all Rosie could see was a little of grandma’s hair escaping from underneath the ridiculous floral nightcap she insisted on donning in the winter. That was understandable, perhaps, thought Rosie. It was a cold day, and the stove was not lit to give warmth. She explained to the dozing old lady why she would not be able to stay long at all. She had an important business meeting to prepare for back in town. She had just wanted to drop by with some fruit. Yes, she went on, she knew that grandmother did not particularly like fruit, but all the same, she hoped she would at least try an apple just to please her. Rosie worried about the lack of vitamins in grandma’s porridge -based diet. Anyway, she would leave the fruit basket by the bed and then she would be on her way. She’d just take a few pictures first.

As Rosie stood up and balanced her basket on the rickety bedside table, grandmother suddenly opened both her eyes and stared at her granddaughter before saying rather gruffly,

 ‘Thank you my dear.’

 ‘You’re welcome,’ Rosie replied, feeling a little concerned by the old lady’s hoarse voice.

 She must have got a bit of a cold. She might even have caught a fever, judging by those bright, rather over-dilated eyes. Rosie supposed that colds were almost inevitable when you did not eat the right foods. She also noticed that a little more of grandmother’s hair had come loose from underneath her nightcap and that, even in the dim light coming from the single lit candle, she was sure that the hair was no longer its sparse, wispy silver self. It had become somewhat wiry and was now a kind of steely grey.  How odd, she reflected, but then she supposed that even an old person might experience moments of vanity and seek to change their appearance. Her grandmother must have hobbled her way into the nearby hamlet and subjected herself to a perm and colour at the old school hair salon by the crossroads. Rosie decided that it would be more tactful to ignore the hair and not to rebuke Grandma about the incipient cold. Instead, she bent down to pat her through the bed clothes. As she did so, the old lady stirred a little and began to yawn, exposing to view what now seemed like massive yellow teeth. What was most out of character, was that she also started to slobber. Then she began to make noises that seemed to bear no resemblance to human speech. Could her grandmother be growling at her, thought Rosie? She had been finding it increasingly hard to be confronted by the old woman’s growing decrepitude, but to be growled at seemed to her to be the final straw.  Without so much as a backward glance, Rosie jumped to her feet and hurried towards the door. Flummoxed as she was, she still could not help but notice the reflection of herself in the huge gilt- edged mirror next to the door and, with instinctive approval, she raised her phone to capture a selfie.

At the time Rosie caught only an impression of herself before rushing from the house and back down the track to find her little red convertible. She jumped into the car, revved its engine, and made her escape from Deep Woods. Only when she was safe and sound back in her modern apartment did she look at the photo. She noticed then how the phone’s barely focussed camera had somehow transformed the figure of her grandmother as she loomed up behind her into a multilimbed giant beast, overshadowing her with its tufty hair, fanglike teeth, and a jaw wide open to omit the terrifying wordless screech that had followed the growl and still echoed in Rosie’s ears. She decided that it would be best to delete the photo, telling herself that she did not want to remember her grandmother as a demented howler unable to communicate as she once had by gentle speech and whimsical folk songs. Rosie shivered at the thought of becoming an object of pity, and of fear, if she were ever to lose her reason like that. Still, looking again at the image, she took comfort in her own familiar contours. She could see that her blond hair was as gorgeously plentiful and fly away as ever, her sharp features still just visible in the half light and contrasting well with the rounded shape of the cape. And yet, absorbed as she was in her beauty, she could not help but notice how one side of her hair looked somehow a little flatter and even matted in comparison to the rest. Its texture was more like that of the wolf pelt that she had hung behind grandma’s bed, and which could just be discerned at the edge of the picture. Rosie put that down to the candlelight, but, when she zoomed in, Rosie’s attention was drawn first to her face and then to her mouth, which was slightly open in the shock of the moment. Rosie realised then that, amidst her pearl drop teeth, she could detect the slightest suggestion of jaggedness in the two incisors just visible between her red lips. It was as if they had acquired a new tendency to protrude. She pressed the delete option immediately.

The next morning, Rosie hurried to her car and drove herself out of town fast. She took no selfies as she followed the track she and her grandmother had once taken through the forest to reach the drowned quarry that everyone local knew as Echo Lake. Alone by the water’s edge, Rosie took out her ‘phone and threw it as hard as she could manage into the deepest and darkest part of the lake she could reach. The phone must have been faulty, she told herself, and she needed a new one to reconnect with her followers and her ambitions. She paused for a few minutes longer before retracing her steps. How could she resist opening her mouth to call out ‘Rosie’ as she had done on that childhood visit, delighted to hear her name rebounding round the lake’s steep sided rock surrounds. This time, however, no words came out; instead, she heard a babble, and then what could only be described as a growl, building to a screech whose arc of sound faded only when she drew breath, and began to walk and then to run from its reverberations.

Rosie drove back into town with her mouth firmly shut. New lines of grim determination across her forehead made her look suddenly older, but she made sure to avoid looking properly at herself in the car mirror. Instead, she allowed herself to think only about her immediate plans. First, she would purchase a new phone. Then she would postpone the meeting with her potential backers and make an urgent appointment with her orthodontist and hair stylist instead. Momentarily, she found herself forgetting recent horrors and even musing on how she might pitch her newfangled ‘howling therapy’ to any rich celebrities who might be interested. Suddenly becoming aware that she was rapidly approaching the familiar signpost, she was forced from her reverie and slowed just enough to swerve her car into the turning for Deep Woods. Rosie knew that whatever her dreams might have been, she still had no choice but to return to grandma’s house. How else could she ever hope to understand what was to become of her?

About the author 

 Jane Spirit lives in Suffolk UK and has been inspired to try writing fiction by going along to her local creative writing class. 

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Apple Pip by Hannah Retallick, apple juice

 He’d told me if I ate apple pips then trees would grow in my stomach.

                 He’d told Mama he loved her more than anything, even chocolate cake.

                 He’d told Auntie Becky he couldn’t leave us for her.

                 It wasn’t true, any of it; I could feel it in my gut. I heard Daddy and the traitor whispering in the kitchen, their branches entwined, blocking my fruit bowl.

                 ‘I just can’t,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

                 But I knew what would happen when I told Mama the truth.

                 We watched them drive away, our tears unstoppable. A half-grown orchard died inside me.

About the author 

Hannah Retallick is from Anglesey, North Wales. She was home educated and then studied with the Open University, graduating with a first-class BA (Honours) Arts and Humanities (Creative Writing and Music) degree, before passing her creative writing MA with distinction. Her work has been placed and shortlisted in several international competitions. https://www.hannahretallick.co.uk/about Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Heavenly Help by Debra J. White, apple juice

“Heavenly help, Angel Gertie here.”

“Need to speak to the big man.”

“Show respect, please. His name is God,” Angel Gertie says.

“I’m sorry, but I need his help.”

“He doesn’t take personal calls. Speak to me, please.”

“I don’t want you. I want him.”

“I can give him a message or you can talk to me,” Angel Gertie says. “We also have a website.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“In heaven, your name, status, wealth, no longer matters. Throwing your name around won’t help. Just spit it out and tell me why you called.”

“I’ll have my lawyer call.”

“No one gets special privileges here. Lawyer or no lawyer,” Angel Gertie says.

“Always helped before.”

“Not here.”

“What’s it like up there?”

“How do you know we’re up?” Angel Gertie says.

“That’s what I always heard.”

“You’ll find out when your time comes.”

“Speaking of that, can you tell me where I am on the list?”

“Nope,” Angel Gertie says.

“What if I slip you a twenty? I’d like a little advance notice so I can shower, get my hair and nails done. Eat a sandwich before I go.”

“Shame for offering a bribe. How would you get it here anyway?” Angel Gertie chuckled. “You’ll get here in due time.”

“What about my problem?”

“What about it? You never said.”

“I got arrested for drinking and driving. Supposed to serve a jail sentence. Could ruin my career.”

“And you want God to intervene?” Angel Gertie says.

“Well, yeah.”

“He doesn’t do that.”

“What does he do?”

“He doesn’t cover up your mistakes to begin with. He’s forgiving but to a point. Deal with the consequences,” Angel Gertie says.

“My lawyer couldn’t get me out of it either. I thought God might step in.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Can’t blame me for trying.”

“People call and ask for many things. Some wishes he grants but trivial wishes like this – never. So, go face the jail time and learn from this.”

“You’re rather harsh, aren’t you? I will be ruined over this and you don’t care.”

“No one told you to drink and drive. Now go along, Another call waits,” Angel Gertie says.

The phone let out one ringy dingy, two ringy dingy and before the third ringy dingy, Angel Gertie picked up.

“Heavenly help, Angel Gertie here. What’s on your mind?”

“Does God give investment advice?”

“Investment advice! This isn’t Wall Street for crying out loud.”

“Can you pass on a question about an investment opportunity?”

“Excuse me but do you know where you called?” Angel Gertie asks.

“I went straight to the top for the best advice. I don’t want to lose money.”

“God isn’t your own personal financial counselor. That’s what stockbrokers are for. Is there anything else you need as long as I’ve got you on the line?”

“Yeah, I had a hard time getting through. Long wait times. Tell me, what he looks like? What color hair? Is it curly, wavy? Does he have a beard?”

“Can’t say,” Angel Gertie says.

“Why not?”

“You’ll find out when it’s your time.”

“How about a sneak preview?’

“Not possible,” Angel Gertie says.

“Is there food in Heaven? Beer? Pretzels? Sunday football?”

“Stop asking me these questions. If there’s nothing else I’m ending the call.”

“I thought I could at least get in a few minutes.”

“Not for this.”

Angel Gertie ended the annoying call. What a day, she said to herself  as she glanced at the long line of people waiting to get in. Many bore scars from gunshots or stabbings. Others were worn and ragged while some had dirty clothes evidently from living on the streets. There were the well-dressed and well-groomed too. God would be busy listening to all their stories as he passed judgment. The animal section, also known as the rainbow bridge, was packed too with cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, cats, deer, and who knows what other four-legged creatures. Those humans couldn’t seem to stop killing animals. Pity wasn’t it Gertie thought as she saw a cat with a scarred face. She wondered what happened to the cat. Soon enough she’d find out. God always conferred with his angels after each judgment day for a recap of the newcomers.

There was another ringy dingy at the end of Angel Gertie’s shift. She thought of letting the next angel handle the call but she decided to take it herself.

“Angel Gertie here, what’s your message?”

“People don’t like me.”

“God loves everyone.”

“Even me?”

“Yes, you,” Angel Gertie says.

“I did bad things.”

“Like what?”

“I stole money.”

“Who from?”’ Angel Gertie asks.

“The bank where I work.”

“Give it back. God would tell you to do that.”

“They don’t need it. I do.”

“It wasn’t your money,” Angel Gertie says.

“They have a lot of money. I only have a little money.”

“Would you want someone to take money from you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Tell the bank you took their money,” Angel Gertie says.

“The bank will be mad.”

“The bank has every right to be mad and take action against you.”

“If I get down on my knees and beg forgiveness.”

“Don’t think it’ll work,” Angel Gertie says.

‘I’m asking you to make it better.”

“No can do.”

“Let me through to God. He’ll understand.”

“We can go back and forth like this for hours but you can’t talk to God. You made a big mistake that only you can fix. Sooner or later, the bank will notice you stole money. It’s better you come clean. Admit what you did. Maybe they’ll be lenient.”

“I stole $1 million.”

“Yikes. Get a lawyer and talk to the bank. God can’t help you. I can’t help you. I will however ask God to pray for you.”

“You’re no help.”

“I didn’t steal. You did,” Angel Gertie says.

“You could at least let God hear my confession.”

“That’s what priests are for.”

“I’m headed for jail. Don’t you care?”

“Of course, but you did this to yourself. We had nothing to do with it,” Angel Gertie says.

“I don’t know why I called. Can’t even get sympathy.”

“You’re a thief. God doesn’t sympathize with thieves. I hear that in some countries they chop off the hands of thieves. You should be lucky you don’t live there.”

“Think of poor old me when I’m in prison scraping by on stale bread and cold water. You had the chance to set me free.”

“Goodbye and good luck.”

The nerve of that man, Angel Gertie said as she ended her shift on the Heavenly Help hot-line. So much for another day of answering calls to the Almighty. Soon enough she’d return and start the process all over again.

“Wait, don’t go.”

“What now?” Angel Gertie asks.

“How’d you get the job of answering the hot line?”

“Easy, I applied for it after I got here.”

About the author

 A car accident ended Debra’s social work career. She re-invented herself through volunteer work and writing. Her website is: www.debrawhite.org 

 

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The Crossing

by Mark Kodama

apple juice

            I was a young man then in the days before cell phones.  I was traveling from Los

Angeles to Washington, D.C. to take a job as a newspaper reporter for a small specialty weekly.  I could not sleep so I checked out of my Motel 6 at 4 a.m. and hit the road. I ate their stale donuts with the motel’s fresh coffee before I hit the road. It was summer time.  Corn fields and farms lined the country road that led to Interstate 40.

            I soon came upon two wrecks at a crossing.  One car had t-boned the other car.  The front end of a black BMI had its front crushed in and it lay to one side of the road beyond the crossing.  A large pale blue pick-up truck with the side of its passenger cab mashed in lay in a ditch turned about face as a result of the impact.

            I stopped my car, parked on the side of the road.  I got out of my car and approached the BMW because it was the vehicle nearest to me.  I could hear the crickets chirping and water dripping from the smashed radiator.  The nauseating smell of radiator fluid, oil and gas filled the air.  There were two matching spider web patterns and blood stains on the front windshield.  A young man and young woman laid curled in each others’ embrace as if sleeping. The young man was dressed in a cotton checkered shirt and blue jeans. The young woman wore a summer dress with floral patterns.

            I tried to open the front driver’s door but it was locked and jammed shut.  At first I tapped on the window hoping to wake the occupants.  Then I banged on to the window and then called to them to see if the young man and woman were still alive.  They did not move. My heart sank.

            I ran to the other car.  The man inside looked like an old farmer in overalls, blue jeans and checkered cotton shirt.  His grizzled face had two days stubble.  He had a macabre toothless smile and his eyes were still open.  His right arm was twisted behind his head as if he was trying to shield himself before he was hit.  Dried tears streaked his ancient face.

            I called to him.  I banged on his window.  I tried to open his frozen door.  I called again but he did not move.  I had never seen death so close up.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up and goose pimples rippled up my arms.

            I got back in my car and drove back to the motel.  I parked my car by the check in.  I told the clerk about the accident who called the police and fire department.  I drove back to the crossing.

II.

            By the time I returned to the crossing, the police and the fire department were already at the scene of the accident.  The sun had come up.  It was already getting hot.  The coroner drove up about 30 minutes later.  The police sealed off the intersection and began to photograph the scene of the accident and measure distances.  The fire personnel loaded the bodies covered by white sheets into ambulances and rove awqay.

            A detective interviewed me as to what I knew about the accident which was not much.  Afterwards, he took my name. address and telephone number.  He asked me to stay a few more days in case he had additional questions.

            A young newspaper reporter asked me if a few questions and then left.

            Afterwards, a police officer drove with me to a local diner.  He asked the diner to put my meal on the house and then left.  I sat at the counter and ordered the corned beef hash and eggs, sunny side up as I always did.  The diner was small, consisting of a counter with nten seats and four  tables.  There were about ten patrons eating at the counter and at two tables.    

            The owner, dressed in a white apron and wearing a white cap, poured me a cup of coffee.  “People drive crazy these days,” he said and shook his head.  He wiped the counter with a wet towel.  I poured cream from a small metal cup into my coffee.  I drained the coffee.  I think a cup of coffee never tasted so good.

            “They sure do,” I said.

            The owner went to the kitchen and then came back with buttered toast.

            “My name is Fred,” he said.

            “Tom,” I said and shook his hand.

            “Crazy kids,”  he said.  Fred then disappeared into the kitchen.

            I thought about my grandmother’s funeral.  I must have been all of five years old.  I can remember my Auntie Dorothy crying and the smell of incense.

            Fred came back with a white plate of corned beef hash, two eggs and fried potatoes.

            “Eat up,” he said.

            A young woman in the diner said she was an animal activist.  She asked me how I could morally live myself and eat meat.  “How does death taste,” she asked.

            “If you mean corned beef hash, I think pretty delicious,” I said.

            Fred came out from the kitchen. “Stop bothering him,” he said to the woman. “You have your opinions.  He has his opinions.  He is not hurting anyone or doing anything illegal.  Leave him alone.’

            I tried to pay for the breakfast but Fred insisted that the meal was on the house.  I tipped two dollars and then headed to the motel.

III.

            I told the clerk I would stay another night.  He nodded.  I then drove into town to the mall.  By now it was noon.  I checked out the outlets at the mall.  I bought a coke, a bag of potato chips and a crime fiction novel at the bookstore: “Double Indemnity” by James Cain.  It was stifling hot.  I could feel the sun burning the side of my face.  The sweat on my back cooled me.  My metal coins had melted into my plastic coin holder.

            I then returned to the motel.  I thought about the young couple and the aged famer who died early this morning.  You are here today with all your dreams and then in an instant you are gone.  Strange.  People talk about a bright light, pearly white gates, God, angels with wings.  Is there an afterlife or only darkness. Do we really have soul? Everybody is going to die and yet nobody really knows anything about it.  People say they know about death but what do they really know about it anyways. Some people claim to have died and have come back from the dead.  If they are here, then they really never did die, did they?

            I went up to my motel room, closed and locked the door and then closed the curtain.  I turned out the lamp and then took out my book from the small plastic shopping bag.  It was a book about murder.  I saw the movie many years ago. It starred Fred McMurray and Edward G. Robinson.

            Death – what does anybody alive really know about death?  I remember that old Steve Martin comedy routine where it turns out God really exists and there is really in heaven.  “In college, they said this was all bullshit,” he joked.

            I drifted off to sleep. I dreamt I was the young man coming upon that intersection about to hit that pick-up truck.  My head slammed into the front windshield as my girlfriend screamed then all was dark.

            I woke up.  I surprised at how frightened I was.  My back was all sweaty.  I got up and went to the bathroom.  I washed my face.  I could hear the swamp cooler running.

            I opened my bag of chips and coke.  I thought about the animal activist at the diner. I remember watching a film in college of a slaughterhouse in New Zealand and how the sleep could see sheep before them getting slaughtered and skinned.  They were hung up on an assembly line desperately struggling to break free.  They knew their fate as the slaughter man brutally killed and skinned their brethren. What gives us that right to take their lives?  If I had real moral courage I would give up eating meat.   

            I finished my chips and coke.  I turned on my television on low for company and read my book.

IV.

            For dinner, I drove to the diner.  Outside the diner, I bought the local community newspaper.  It was a thin afternoon newspaper, the kind printed on cheap new stock with the ink coming off on your hand as you read the paper.  The front page featured the wreck and had a large photograph and accompanying story.  I ordered the meat loaf special with a side of mash potatoes, gravy and steamed broccoli.  I savored every bite.  I think it was the tstiest mal I had ever had.  Even the coke tasted special.

            I remember reading a essay by the great Roman philosopher Seneca “On the Shortness of Life.”  He said everybody dies and many people complain that their lives are too short.  But Seneca said our lives are not too short.  The problem is that we do not make the most of our time here.

            I ordered the apple pie a la mode for desert.  I love apple pie.