101 Words

He knocked on her front door as sheets of rain slashed her windows.

“Hi, ma’am, there’s a mighty storm arriving. Can I make your home safe?”

“Oh, yes please, I do need help.” Jennifer made him coffee while he nailed her window shutters and put sandbags at her door.

The wind howled and the sea surged as he finished.

“Come in, it’s too late to return to town.”

He barricaded the door from the inside. “You are remote out here, ma’am.”

She turned and saw a wicked steel knife in his hand. Her breath froze.

“Would you like a mango, ma’am?”

It is finished.

Kicking open the screen door with the bridge of my pointed foot, I leap onto the porch. The sound of a thousand plaudits greets me. My audience is standing, a sign of their approval and admiration. They have released a murder of crows in my honor. In their arms are pouches full of yellow gemstones: citrine and topaz, rewards for my outstanding performance. I curtsy and pirouette into cornfields, witnesses to my bloody exhibition. I wait, hidden amongst the stalks like a child.

There is barely enough time for mingling, however; the police sirens are announcing Act II.

Do not despair, my friend. The Vienna Academy of Fine Arts is not the only school in the country. What do they know anyway, a bunch of old fuddy-duddies! You should apply to an art school in Germany. I hear they are more progressive over there. I think your work shows a lot of promise. Your hand-painted postcards are beautiful. Submit your portfolio to other places and see. And, even if you are not destined to be an artist, you have other talents, my friend. Come, let me buy you a beer. Don’t worry, Adolf, you will find your calling.

“I don’t think you’re the right person to tell me what to do,” he said, taking a plate of mashed potatoes from the counter. Seeing the agitation on her face, he quickly added, “I just think you should relax, that’s all.”

He left the room abruptly, avoiding the conflict just like he had been avoiding the truth.

She stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen.

The chicken broth smelled like disappointment, and the family hadn’t even arrived yet. She looked at the tableware, ready to be put on the table.

She was sure some of them would break that evening.

With just days left until the wedding, George’s sister told me that their mother still laid out George’s clothes every morning, including socks and underwear. We laughed until she said, “You think I’m kidding, don’t you?”

Wasn’t she?

Well, what if George was a beta male? Probably so was Beethoven! Not to mention Jesus. Besides, invitations were mailed and airline flights booked, friends and family soon heading our way. And the money! Thousands—non-refundable—spent on gowns, tuxedos, flowers, the hall, the band. Plus the presents! OMG! I’d have to rewrap them and send them back!

Easier to just get married.

I knew it would end this way, it always did, but this guy was different. He’d shown real style, so there was something particularly gloomy about collecting his teeth from my driveway that winter morning. I snagged a button, bottle cap, carnival token, and two marbles from the weeds behind the minivan, leaving his torn fedora, stained vest, and crumpled tie behind.

Turns out, the sun had done its dirty work and our family snowman was dead and gone, and as the warm rays struck my face, I soon forgot it was his forlorn smile I was holding in my hand.

The grackles flew into the oleander hedge every morning at sunrise and woke me with their raucous shrieks.

Betty, my neighbor, threatened to cut down the hedge. “I just hate all that squawking,” she said.

“Please, don’t cut the oleanders,” I replied.

One day I returned from work to find the hedge reduced to bare sticks jutting from the leaf-strewn earth. True to her threat, Betty had cut down the oleanders. Three days later, Betty died.

The oleanders have regrown now, but the grackles have not returned and I awaken to silence.

I miss the grackles more than I miss Betty.