loss

The Presence

The wind chimes were driving him nuts.

“They’re pretty,” his wife said, without looking up from her book.

“Pretty loud!”

“Go take them down, then.”

“All right, I will.”

He set aside his laptop, leaned forward in his chair, and then stopped. It seemed too easy. He studied his wife for a moment, sensing a trap.

“Really? That would be OK with you?”

“Sure. Go ahead. What’s to stop you?”

“Your mom! This could be her way of haunting me.”

His wife laughed. “She has other ways to do that.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“Take down her chimes, and you’ll see.”

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #407 at Velvet Verbosity.

Ranson’s Beard

By Jim Anderson

Ranson’s beard was older than his daughter, the corporate attorney who’d moved to Oregon to get as far from him as North America allowed.

He wasn’t shaving without due consideration. He’d grown it the summer of Lillian’s pregnancy. He was teaching philosophy in Ohio, and working on his book. One day he stopped at a produce stand, and the be-whiskered farmer who sold him sweet corn provided the inspiration. Lillian never liked facial hair. Their divorce was as much about that as anything.

Ranson kept the beard all through his marriage to Samantha.

Now it was time for the razor.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #378 at Velvet Verbosity.

Last Call

By Jim Anderson

Larry told her before last call. “Your brother’s dead.” Just like that.

Janay sagged against the bar.

“You OK?”

“For a bartender, you got shitty people-skills.”

“Take off, why don’t you.”

She shook her head. “He said he was invincible. I guess he believed it.”

Janay finished the shift. Later, her mother was predictable. “They shot him in the street,” she said. “Like a dog.”

“I never saw a dog shot. How they do that?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“He didn’t deserve to be done that way.”

Janay wasn’t sure what he deserved.

“We gotta get out of here,” she said.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #352 at Velvet Verbosity.

Nor the Battle to the Strong

By Jim Anderson

Mom wants to take Jason to the faith healer who’s appearing nightly in a limited engagement at the Westgate Auditorium.

“There’s no such thing as faith healing,” I say.

“He’s dying,” she says.

Like I don’t know that. Like anybody wouldn’t know that who sees Jason in the hospital bed in her living room, a lump of bony flesh, each breath a whimper. My brother, who fought in Iraq, who ran marathons, who had a bright future until the Big C tapped him on the shoulder. You’re it!

I want to ask Mom when she got religion.

But I know.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #347 at Velvet Verbosity.

The Cross Roads

By Jim Anderson

Looks good, don’t he? Like he could sit up and tell a story. Ol’ Terry knew a few! He wanted to write, you know. No, I never saw him with the arm, either. Yeah. In the war. The Hürtgen Forest, 1944. Same day he crossed paths with Hemingway. Sure, the author! Funny story. Terry’s hugging the ground and he looks up. There’s Hemingway standing by the road, tree-splinters flying everywhere. The guy next to Terry yells, “Get down, you crazy bastard!” A shell comes in, and boom! It takes out the guy and Terry’s arm. ‘Course, he told it better.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #346 at Velvet Verbosity.

Details

By Jim Anderson

The professor wore the required shirt and shoes. He expected service.

Yes, his pants were missing. So were his underpants, his socks and his wife of 38 years, if anyone cared for details.

The girl behind the counter gaped at him, her mouth a perfect O. The professor set down a bottle. “It’s all in your imagination,” he told her. True enough. What could she see beyond the counter-top? A man in bifocals and a wrinkled shirt. “Let’s get on with it.” He pulled a bill from his shirt pocket, and unfurled it beside the register.

She rang him up.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #336 at Velvet Verbosity.