101 Words

Mark had a merciless, cut-throat father. Win over others, no matter the consequences. Beaten for not remembering to say ‘Sir.’  Still, Mark enjoyed private jet trips to exotic game hunts with his father.

“I want to be like you when I grow up, Dad.”

“Attaboy. Strong. Nobody gets in your way. Drive ‘em outta business.”

Years later, a ruthless Mark forced the board to make him CEO and fired his father.

More years passed. “Why’d you dump me and confine me to this facility, Son?”

“I wanted to be just like you, Dad. You should be very proud. Now I’m better.”

Every morning she woke at 5 o’clock. Like clockwork. In the winter months, when the nights were long, she would sit at her kitchen table and sip her tea to pass the long hours until daylight.

This morning, she cupped her tea in her hands, hoping it would warm her. Across the table sat another cup, half-empty, never again to be emptied or refilled.

Her clock had stopped at 5:35. The kitchen clock read 6:22. She was fine. The other her slumped in her chair. The one who was quite dead.

No hurry. She would wait for sunrise.

The rain gear photoshoot was scheduled on a cloudless day, the only water a nearby stream.

“Pretend it’s raining,” the photographer instructed. I clenched the rain jacket closed, squeezed my eyes shut, and gazed at the clouds.

“No one stares at rain,” he shouted, “run from it!”

“Like this?” I flipped the hood over my head, bowed my head, and charged forward. His camera shutter ticked rapid-fire, like rain on a window.

I stumbled over a rock, plummeted head first into the stream, and rose from the water with my tresses dripping and pant legs clinging to my legs.

“Perfect.”

As a child, she used to love winters. On the mornings of the first snow, she would jump out of bed and rush outside—admiring how the tiny white crystals falling from the sky blanketed the whole world in white. Winters back then meant sipping toasty hot chocolate, making snow angels, singing merrily in the snow, and having snowball fights with mother and father.

Now, winters meant tedious driving, biting cold, having to get up at least half an hour earlier for work, and not getting enough sleep. She supposed that her mother was right: all things beautiful fade with time.

Between semesters and during summers, I worked construction to pay for my share of the rent, beer, and pizza. I imagined stories of my manual labor would spice up my lectures one day and prove to students that unlike other professors I understood the real world. The work kept me tan and ripped without going to the gym.

What a pompous ass I was.

“Hey, professor,” my boss was yelling again, “get that damn thing moving.”

“Okay. I’m going.”

Older. Flabbier. Still giving lectures in my head. A silent class.

The mini backhoe roared to life. No rest for a gravedigger.

Pain lances through her chest, stealing her breath. Foolish to be exerting herself like this, but damn the doctor’s orders. She grasps her trowel, determined, and layers warm soil over the shrub’s vigorous roots.

Myrtle had, long ago, flourished here in this garden when she and Thomas were courting. Its heavy scent freighting their dreams, its white petals falling like confetti over summer lawns; as the soldiers later fell like autumn leaves upon the charnel fields of Flanders.

Denied her own nuptials then, her final wish now is to bequeath the blossom from this plant to some future June bride’s bouquet.