101 Words

She was fillings, he was bread, and they worked in the huge city sandwich-making plant. They had never met, until one day, when their destinies came together in the hospital emergency after their separate accidents.

She lost her right hand to a malfunctioning can-opening machine. His left hand was destroyed during a moment of inattention operating the roll-slicing machine. She could never again eat tuna, and he could not face bread.

They discovered, however, that they both liked chocolate and cream cakes.

Eventually they would waddle down the aisle, their prosthetics intertwined, to the encouraging two-handed applause of their workmates.

The smell of coffee wafted through the air as the office gossips drank their morning brew. The topic of today’s discussion was Weird Steve and his mismatched socks.

Janice inquired, “Has anyone ever asked him about it?”

Just then Steve strolled by sporting one blue polka-dotted sock and one solid brown one. Janice called out, “Steve, why don’t your socks match?”

Steve replied, “For years, Mom folded my socks and handed them to me warm from the dryer. She died last year, and this is one way I honor her memory.”

“That’s really sweet,” said Janice and invited Steve to dinner.

After so many years, I hardly recognize the man lying in front of me. Scattered over his surprisingly large belly are children’s drawings on bright-colored paper. ‘Dear grandpa’ is written on them.

I didn’t even get to call him ‘Dad.’

Chattering voices interrupt my thoughts. Children enter from the crowded anteroom, followed by an elderly woman, likely his second wife. I nod, even though she can’t know me.

Nobody here does.

“May we close the coffin, Grandma?” the kids ask. “They promised us.”

I cast one last glance at the man I have hardly known and slip out of the room.

He’d heard that drowning only sucked at first—that once you got past the agony of water filling your lungs, it was a peaceful way to go. Muscles screaming for rest, he paddled well beyond any previous foray. Stopping, catching his breath, he took in the sun, the open water, the sound of the waves that constituted his world. He was the furthest he could be from the sickeningly sterile medical center where he’d spent the morning. He’d be damned if the white coats would mete out his final days from an orange vial. Diagnose this, he thought, and dove deep.

When the soul met Charon at the River Styx, the ferryman expected payment. But many things had changed in the world of mortals. Instead of coins staking his eyelids, the soul carried a Visa gift card. Its balance was substantially higher than the customary fare, and so his mourners flattered themselves for their own generosity. But Charon had no account for receiving transferred funds. The soul offered the ferryman Venmo and Paypal as alternatives, but the problem remained.

And so the soul yet wanders the near shore of Styx, ever in limbo, praying for the day Charon acquires a chip reader.

“Soon as we finish dumping this body, I’ll give you your ‘reward,’ Charlie.”

“Wait, why did you say ‘reward’ in quotes?” Charlie asked.

“Are you nuts, Charlie? I’m going to give you what you deserve.”

“And you said that in italics! You’re planning on killing me!” Charlie pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket.

“Charlie, put down that gun! No one is going to hurt you. I’m your ‘friend’!”

Detective Dan, hero of this issue’s featured story, leaned forward, parting the smoke clouds in the interrogation room.

“Tell us why you killed your partner. We’ll go easy. I promise.”

Charlie sighed.