101 Words

Art revved the motor, feeling the sweet power of his ride straining at the starting line. His mechanic had done an outstanding job giving the beast a once over in the shop. Glancing over at his competitor, he held his gaze, steely eyed as adrenaline pumped through his veins. He lived for this moment. The challenge of the race, the excitement. The adulation of the crowd of women. Just as he was set to unleash the beast, an orderly rounded the corner and planted himself squarely on the track. “You guys were told to stop racing your scooters in the hall!”

Dear Bernice,

Shocked, daughter? Discovering Sammi and Tabby in the garage? Asphyxiated?

Those two old cats! Your childhood favorites.

One moment you’d be swinging out back, next frolicking around the neighborhood with those tiresome creatures.

Sulked when called home. Baking cookies? Ballet practice? Computer time? No suggestion competed with those two biddies.

On occasion, I grudgingly permitted them into our home. Both imperious, nibby-nosed—sniffing disdainfully, refusing refreshments.

Why, you’re wondering, kill them now?

Because of your and Dwight’s marvelous news.

Samantha and her sister Tabatha, tiresome spinsters, won’t be vying for the role as grandmother to my grandchild.

Always,

Mother

The first medication made her nauseous. The second made her fat. There was a vegan diet, and then a paleo festival of meat. She exercised. She struggled with meditation and sleep. A light box that beamed fake sunshine took up all the space on her nightstand, so she had to stash the book she was reading under her pillow. This latest cure had more complicated instructions, but she’d do anything to squash her soul-sucking depression. The move from medicine to magic was her last desperate hope. The draught was bitter. She woke up feeling light and happy under a blue sun.

Larissa was running late and prayed no one would notice her sneaking through the back door. She was always late, but today had completely disrupted her schedule—her kids woke late, traffic stalled, and she needed to stop for gas. One more late day and her boss would write her up simply because he didn’t like her. What could possibly happen to make her morning worse?

The red and blue flashing lights surrounding the building were the first sign. Her dead boss was the second. The police were third, especially since they wanted to talk about the blood on Larissa’s boots.

When Joey saw the movie Samson and Delilah on his tenth birthday, he was of two minds about Samson. He loved how Samson’s prayer split open the sky. Loved how the Lord’s strength poured into his arms. And loved how he upended the chariots of his Philistine oppressors, crushed their skulls with an ass’s jawbone, and then snapped his chains like they were marsh reeds.

But when Samson encountered the lion earlier, Joey hated him for killing it.

Just as he hated his father for drowning Delilah, the tabby he’d cared for all his life, after she became half-blind and incontinent.

I had dirt in my eye. I could feel it scratching. It was the least of my worries.

A secluded farmhouse. An elderly farmer, distrustful of banks, lives there alone. He keeps cash on the premises. Supposedly an easy in and out job.

I didn’t count on him having a beartrap, nor me stepping into it. The pain was excruciating and I blacked out. But worse was yet to come.

Barbed wire wraps around my limbs, pinning me to mud and shit caked floor.

The squeal of hinges, and I hear them grunting.

My blood taints the air, attracts them.

Hogs.

When the bombs fell, my friend Erin had been telling me one of her disaster dating stories.

Erin was one of those women who are always ahead of the curve: the first one to get a boyfriend, the first one to get a job, the first one to buy an apartment. By the time she was thirty, she had two kids and a stellar career where she’d already hit the glass ceiling. When I got married and had a baby, she was divorced and back on the dating market.

So when the bombs fell, naturally, she was the first to go.