101 Words

She likes to take pictures of the dead.

He rides with her to the cemetery. It’s just outside of town, nestled between jack pines and oaks.

Cemeteries creep him out.

“Over here,” she says.

He follows. Dead people. You can’t see them. They’re beneath the ground. Long since rotted, except recent burials.

It’s a gravestone with a photo mounted on it. A woman from another century. She aims the camera to take a picture of the picture.

He looks at the gravestone photo. Looks like her, he thinks. Then he hears something rustling in the brush.

I hate cemeteries, he thinks.

Ira stood tall, arched an aching back and surveyed his handiwork. Tired but satisfied, he dropped the spade and took another swig of whiskey. He’d earned it today.

He was known for his colossal cabbages at the annual show and had a cabinet full of shiny trophies, to show for it.

This year however, he knew the topic of conversation in the beer tent, would be his onions!

He hadn’t expected to bury his wife under them today. It never crossed his mind… until he hit her. It was unfortunate for both of them. She was dead and Ira couldn’t cook.

The ding of the hammer connecting sounded like a far off bell. The tile came away from the wall with the gentlest of taps. He reached behind it, touching the pitch black of the small recess until his fingers found the folded paper among the dust and rough stone edges. For a moment he wondered if the light would dissolve it, he was sure he had seen that happen. But no, the yellowed document survived its return from the darkness. Carefully, nervously, he smoothed it flat against the floor and, for the first time in a decade, read his real name.

Time stands still here. You have to push it aside to move. Hours, minutes, seconds; they hang suspended in the air like discarded toys.

Wading through, I reach a dark room. There I find some frozen memories. I pick up my very first, and let it wash over me.

I am two years old, Mom’s voice is soothing in my ear as I look down at the dark swirling waters of the lake.

Suddenly, Mom screams in surprise—then terror, as she falls and disappears into the water. Papa just stands there with a blank face.

Then I wake up screaming!

It is the worst feeling, betrayal. I could not take it from her, my wife of 5 years. Being a comedian is not easy when one is going through turmoil. Yes, I had to do something.

And, I executed my plans. I had a good reputation earned through showing the best of values. I wished to keep it so.

I turned that to my advantage.

My wife met with a road accident. I was careful about my alibi.

She crippled my feelings, I crippled her for life.

Her one betrayal made me to live cautiously with a secret throughout my life.