101 Words

He shakes uncontrollably, unable to be present to hear the words pleading for him to come back. No one has control in this moment.

Tears escape my blurred eyes, flooding any strength I have left and drowning all sense of security I desperately want to provide.

His eyes roll back, revealing the ability to change lives forever, while his tiny mouth seems to form words which don’t exist. Halting, rigid movements silently scream, daring me to try and embrace him.

Eventually his body calms, and sleep takes over his exhausted soul. We’re both helpless, but at least he will recover well.

My wife and I were having dinner with my boss, Greg, and his wife, Karen. We could overhear a busboy on the phone.

“You know I love you, Baby. You are the only thing in my world!”

I grasped my wife’s hand on the table. We stole a glance at each other. I felt sorry for the busboy, not knowing true love. Too many bills, too many needs, too many obstacles in the life of a busboy to really have love.

Karen noticed the hands clasped across the table from her. “How charming that workers think they know love,” she thought.

How long has she listened to this little pissant’s misogynistic rants: “small, weak, stupid, only good for one thing.” Meanwhile it was her hard work, her innovations keeping him propped up and in the boss’s good graces.

“Must be on the rag,” he would say out loud without the common decency to mumble such a crass remark.

She squeezed hard enough to deny oxygen to his lungs and pea-brain. She had 15 seconds to decide if he were to live or die.

“Isn’t it just like a woman,” she mocked in his nasally voice, “to be unable to make up her mind!”

“That went well,” the corporal said to his captain.

“At least now we have the supplies we need to continue the mission.” Both men turned to wave at the Sioux chief and his son, who watched them from the edge of their village. The corporal grabbed the reins of the captain’s tethered horse.

“Get Duggs and Bricker when we get back to base, then come back. I don’t trust those savages.”

The captain heaved himself into his saddle.

“Sir, did you warn them that the previous owners of those quilts died of small pox?”

“Why would they need to know that?”

Ernie grinned and cast his line in to the gently flowing river.

The Hospice had been nice, filled with wonderfully caring people, but now this was where he needed to be.

He looked over to his wife, Jean, married twenty-five blissful years and this was her first time fishing. Jean smiled warmly at Ernie.

The sun shone and a cool breeze stirred the trees as Ernie recast his line.

Jean let out a laugh and a giggle as her line twitched. “I’ve got one, Ernie!”

Ernie chuckled softly, his eyes closed as his rod slipped gently from his hand, “Bloody typical…”

My sister picked me up at the airport. We drove straight to the nursing home. A year had passed since I’d last seen our mom. I braced myself, my sister telling me she’d changed for the worst.

At ninety-four, her body was shrunken in her metal hospital bed. She thought my sister was her aunt. She looked at me curiously and asked who I was. I lied, saying I did volunteer work. “You seem like a nice person,” she said. She looked off into the distance.

I can’t describe the sadness. We’d always had trouble connecting. Now it would be impossible.