
Executer
The last present I ever gave her was blue Roseville pottery. I purchased a lot of it at auction years ago. I knew it would make good gifts for her at the right times.
Eventually, she required a display cabinet.
At Christmas, I gave her the last pieces of pottery.
I heard from family at the funeral that she was proud of me. She often spoke of where I was working, what I was doing.
I thought I disappointed her.
I hope she genuinely enjoyed all those Roseville vases and bowls.
Next week I have to start boxing it up.
2024 December Drabble Winner
Winning entry: theprose.com/post/835181/recycled-hope-a-drabblexxx
This month's winning entry is by Mariah, "Recycled Hope."
Honorable mention to TheWolfeDen's "Holidays," theprose.com/post/835346/holidaysxxx
Treading Lightly
It isn't a time capsule, it's a time bomb.
It exploded in slow motion decades ago, but the pieces and parts have been carefully preserved. Several zip-lock bags segregate different types, and they all fit inside a couple of shoe boxes. The bags and box wear no labels, but I know them well.
"What's that?" she asks, helping me cull items from my shed. Some stuff will be sold, some donated, and a surprising amount is trash. I've hauled everything in this outbuilding around for at least two moves, and the upcoming would be the third.
It's time to let things go.
I smile but don't really answer. "It goes in a 'keep' box," I say, pretending not to smell perfumed letters from one of the bags.
She pretends not to notice that I dodged her question.
It's okay. I still pretend to dodge shrapnel from the girl who wrote those letters decades ago, but I’m not very agile.
The folded pages of college-ruled wear the inky scrawl of a teen girl in love with a boy.
She grew up and so did I, but the time capsule of letters from a love that once was makes memory a minefield.
Goddamned answers
Are we all different versions of Job? I thought the wages of sin were death, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like we're the wagers and sin is how we make our wages, with death inevitable no matter how we live.
I've done a decent job with the Commandments, not because You said so, but because it's what decent folk do.
I’ve noticed the fastest way to get decent folk to behave indecently is invoke Your Name.
So tell me, am I Abraham or Isaac, because I'd rather be the one holding the knife if I have a choice.
Dogpark
The man chain smoked on the park bench several yards from where I'd settled. He looked over at me as I played fetch with his little French Bulldog for about an hour. I had no business in the dog park, really, being in town without a dog.
I just went out for a walk. The hotel had grown too small and the world outside just a little too large; the relative quiet of the Tribeca park was a nice compromise between New York City and me. The fact that it was a dog park was a happy accident. No one seemed to mind me being there, quietly petting or playing with the furry visitors as they came by to pay respects.
This man's dog, though. She was different. She took a shine to me as soon as I shut the iron gate and sat on an empty bench. She was a stout little thing, fifteen pounds of muscle in a seven pound frame. The little critter actually reminded me of the cartoon bulldog from Tom & Jerry in shape if not size. Her front legs were like oversized arms on a bodybuilder, with her rear legs like that same bodybuilder who ignored leg days. She snuffled at me and dropped a ball at my feet.
I looked up at her owner, and he gave a tiny nod. Permission granted to play, from behind a veil of tobacco smoke. I grinned, and tossed the ball across the park and the feisty little bulldog fetched. This went on for the better part of an hour, not a word was spoken, and I lost count of how many times the flare of a Zippo caught my eye.
Finally, flicking away his last butt, the man slid to the end of his bench and turned towards me. He stood, straightening a tan trenchcoat that fell from his shoulders like it'd hung there for years. Watching us continue to play fetch, he spoke in what I immediately clocked as a British accent. I'm terrible with identifying them beyond "British," it could have been somewhere in London or the countryside, I don't know.
"That ain't my dog, bruv," he said. I was surprised to see a new unlit cigarette between his pointing fingers. "Nope. I'm just watchin' 'er for a bit. Thank you for playin' with the thing. Saved me the trouble."
I smiled. "It's been fun. A nice distraction from...everything." I tried to keep melancholy out of my voice, but it always has a way of creeping in around all the edges.
"Mate. It ain't my business, but what brings you to the city?"
"Family stuff." I wasn't going to tell this stranger that back in my hotel room were ashes to be spread at places in the city that meant a lot to someone I cared about.
He nodded, not comprehending, but understanding. I gave him a weak smile as thanks for his refusal to press the issue.
"You notice how that little mutt keeps droppin' the ball just out of your reach every other time she fetches?" I had noticed, in fact. We'd established a pattern: after about four throws, she'd break in the shade, lying with her legs splayed so her belly would rest on the cold autumn concrete. I was comfortable in the crisp air, but several people around us were wearing sweaters or coats. The little Frenchie was obviously getting heated with all the exercise. Every other throw, though, she'd drop the ball too far to my right, almost like she thought I was sitting on that side of the bench instead of leaning on the left armrest. I'd tell her to bring it to me, she'd stare up at the empty seat, look over at me, then kick the little ball so it would roll into my hand. I thought it was a clever trick, but odd that she kept doing it that way instead of bringing it directly to me.
"Yeah, it's strange. Like she forgets where I'm sitting."
The man nodded, grunting in what I assumed was an affirmative.
"It's not that, mate."
She dropped the ball at the opposite end of the bench again.
I looked over that way, then back up to the blonde chainsmoker.
He reached into a coat pocket, handed me a plain white business card. I thanked him, looked at the card, and then back at him. "So, Mr. John Constantine, what kind of work do you do?"
He paused, lit yet another cigarette, and stooped down to hook up the bulldog to a leash. He didn't answer until he'd taken a couple of long, contemplative drags.
"Mate, when you ever need me, call me. I don't know what brings you here to the City, but what I do know? You ain't been sittin ’ere on this bench alone, and the mutt knows it, too."
I should have felt a cold chill, but instead, all I felt was happy.
October 2024 Horror Drabble Challenge Winner
This month's challenge presented some excellent entries! In the end, I went with the story that I thought was not only excellent, but shaded with the texture of real loss that provides a spooky element of the oh-so-familiar. The supernatural flair of the stinger put it over the top.
I can't simply link stuff anymore (love that for us), so you'll have to decipher the link that follows: dubyadubyadubya dot theprose dot com /post/832722/til-the-cows-come-home-a-drabble
The winner is Mariah with her entry, "’til the cows come home."
Malice Aforethought
The noise of the place is surprising. It's two in the morning, but a scream echoes off concrete walls and mirror-polished floors. Laughter, whispers, and passionate grunts and breathing spill into the hallway.
Someone who looks like me stretches on a thin mattress, hands resting behind his head as he stares into nothing, waiting for sleep that slips by, uncaught, elusive, dreaded.
Steel bars stand sentinel against a life spent in a shotgun’s flash.
He is the me that almost was.
I alone know how close I came to the cage, and how close another man was to the grave.
A grimm tale
We come now to a place that was once a mechanic's garage. The whole block was purchased by a man of means, and gut remodels have been completed in all the old brick buildings except this one.
This one has become storage for things unwanted.
Bare concrete is occupied with stacks of dusty furniture, a broken hydraulic lift, and rat-nested boxes of magazines or books and receipts from forty years of businesses that occupied this side street off of the main drag.
A meandering path is cut through the forest of yesteryear's calendars and filing cabinets, and it opens into a clearing lit by a cracked skylight.
In a pool of starshine, glowing as if center stage beneath a spotlight, she lies.
Oil-stained concrete gives way to a bare, yellowed mattress.
Bare, yellowed mattress gives way to a bared, stained girl.
Bared, stained girl gives herself away so easily.
He took her, those months ago, when she strayed off the beaten after wandering away from the Greyhound bus station. That logo leers in her fevered dreams between his visits; she sees a silver, sleek running wolf in her deepest moments of need, and she prays for just one more beautiful release.
Thoughts of home fade when memories seep from her veins, and she is weightless as she floats into the warm oranges and reds of sweet surrender. Not even her worn, dirty crimson hoodie can comfort her as much as the poison that flows so sweetly.
Silver, slender fangs bite into her, but she welcomes the peace as she is consumed one fix at a time.
In a pool of starshine, glowing as if center stage beneath a spotlight, the savage beast of a man claims his prize.
We now draw the curtain, leaving the hunter with the hunted, in this place that has become storage for things unwanted so far from the gaze of grandmothers and woodsmen.