101 Words

“When feathers and eggs are your business, chocolate hearts and flowers are of no use whatsoever,” she’d exclaimed when he’d arrived with an armload of both for their first date.

Nowadays, he helps cull any ailing birds, standing on the other end of the broomstick so she can snap their necks with efficient cracks. Then he takes them from her one at a time, wings still flapping. He ties them by their feet to the fence whilst she walks away, wiping her hands on the hem of the apron she wears for killing.

“Now that is true love,” she sighs happily.

Sara stood atop the abandoned railroad under a blood moon—the beginning of the end of times. She steadied herself on the brick parapet, gazed into a dark fall sky dotted only with Gemini’s brightest stars. They didn’t shine bright to her. She saw slight points of light struggling to exist against the surrounding emptiness, an emptiness so deep a surging river wouldn’t fill it. She was done trying to adjust. She had never been able to anyway. The street receded into the mist. Cars crept like mice in the street lamps’ hazy glow. She wondered if she would hit one.

Due to lagging attention over my weapons qualification results, I overlooked a bullet hiding in the bolt of my M-16. I returned with the other soldiers to our company arms room. For safety reasons, the unit armorer demanded that all weapons used on the firing range have their muzzles pointed upward and triggers pulled. I acquiesced. Within seconds, the bang of the round coupled with a black powdery discharge on the ceiling made clear that something had led to a slight SNAFU. Everyone turned to face me. Red-faced, the company commander, my direct superior, called me to his office.

Jayson had learned the word in school. One of the week’s ten vocabulary words. Mr. Wallace had told him if he used it three times, it would forever be his.

He started by using it to describe his aunt’s behavior, since she had gotten drunk at his cousin’s wedding reception and passed out.

Then he used it to describe the former mayor’s arrest in an FBI prostitution ring sting.

By the time he had begun to enumerate the transgressions of his pastor at Great Mount Olive Church, everyone began to fear what Jayson’s growing vocabulary would mean for them, as well.

The sky has just begun to lighten when the backyard rooster clears his throat. He begins to crow, aiming his strident call at the edge of the dawn where the moon sinks as the sun heaves itself over the horizon. Ribbons of color trail one another, and my man and I are too riveted by the glow to pay attention to the bird until his cry shatters the colors. My man answers with a Tarzan yell. A double set of loops tumbling into the morning, one smothering the other.

Which is the alarm and which is the all clear? I wonder.

Chris stopped listening to the news. Instead, he writes his own each morning and records it on his phone. At lunchtime he leaves his office, puts in his headphones, and plays his news while he goes for a walk.

A peace treaty was signed yesterday. Scientists have discovered signs of life on a distant planet. New implants will help blind people see. A dog rescued a girl from a well and was adopted by her family because, as it turns out, it had been lost itself. People the world over do small, kind things.

And now, here’s Chris with the weather.

Outside, seven-year-old Katie is playing with the dog.

I slip into her bedroom and grab the fat-faced pig with its carefully hoarded coins. What will she think when she discovers?

While Katie sings happily to herself, I’m trying to control my shaking. The money is all that matters. It must be mine.

Fighting humiliation and disgust, I swing the hammer, smashing the pig.

I gather the meagre haul, kick the shards under her bed, and sneak out.

Minutes later, the bartender is staring as if he knows what I’ve done.

Flushed with shame, I spread the coins and order a scotch.