⚡ Flash Fiction

Sweetheart, 

Because you are on a ship somewhere in the Pacific, I don’t know when you will receive this letter, but know that I wrote it on our son’s second birthday. 

Yesterday, I ran into our classmate, Mary Mercer, at the grocery. Her brother Mike is on his way home from Europe. His Jeep turned-over and he was badly injured, but she says he’s going to be okay. 

I promised you before you shipped-out that regardless of when you came home you would take Jared for his first haircut. I wanted to save a first for you because I correctly presumed you would miss Jared’s first steps and words. 

I can’t keep my promise. Let me explain what happened. 

Your Uncle Leo has been good to us. He allows Jared and me to live rent-free in his garage apartment. Still, I stretch your allotment check to its limit, and then to its breaking point every month. I owe Ramsey’s Market for two months’ worth of groceries. It’s hard to believe, but the price of gas is up to twenty-one cents a gallon. 

I know you don’t want me to work; but to make ends meet, I had to take a job at the pants factory. You remember the dishcloth and towel factory in Wellston. The government converted it to the manufacture of military uniforms. I’m a final inspector. 

The schools are only open four hours a day. The military requires so much fuel oil that the schools can’t get enough to open eight hours a day. That means the students are on half-day shifts. Your Cousin Fran goes to high school from 8:00 A.M. to noon. I work from 3:00 P.M. to midnight, so I hired Fran to babysit Jared while I am at work. Fran is a good kid, although I question her intention to become a nun. I don’t think it’s my place to confront her on that matter. 

Paul, my insides hurt when I leave Jared to go to work because I know I am supposed to stay home and take care of him. I just don’t have a choice. 

Yesterday, without my knowledge, Fran took Jared to Walt’s Barber Shop. She paid Walt twenty-five cents to cut Jared’s hair. 

When I saw the result, I cried. All of Jared’s blond curls are gone. 

I asked Fran why she did it. 

“Because Jared looked like a girl,” she said. “People kept telling me how ‘cute’ my ‘daughter’ was, and I didn’t think you would mind.” 

I’m sorry Paul. I am. I wanted you to take Jared for his first haircut. It’s this war. We can’t plan our lives. I’m just wearing down. 

As tough as this war is on me, I know it’s a hundred times harder on you. I try to be positive because I don’t want you to worry about us. 

Please know that Jared and I miss you. I lay awake at night thinking about you. Every night I ask God to bring you home to us. 

I love you so very much, 

Alma

 

May 17, 1965- My father never took me to get a haircut. He didn’t receive Mom’s letter. His ship, the USS Bates, was attacked by kamikazes on May 25, 1945, while transporting troops to Okinawa. Twenty-one sailors died. 

Biography: The author’s father did return after service in WWII. This story is to remind us of those fathers who didn’t come home.  ⚡

Eight-year-old Josh stares in the mirror. He wears Transformer pajamas, the water is running, and his toothbrush is untouched. He pushes his nose up and puffs his cheeks out. Giggles erupt. Josh likes to make goofy faces at his reflection; he does this every time his mother, Jean, says to brush his teeth. She used to yell about it, but he’s grown devious. Now he doesn’t leave the water running too long, he remembers to wet his toothbrush, and he squishes the toothpaste tube in a different spot so it looks as if he’s actually put some on his toothbrush.

After Josh leaves the bathroom, Tricia comes in and closes the door. She’ll be thirteen next month, but she’s already hit her ugly duckling stage. At least that’s what Jean calls it. She says it’s a natural thing all girls go through. Tricia knows that’s a lie; her older sister, Kelli, has never looked ugly or awkward or disgusting - ever. Tricia stands before the mirror now, staring at her sullen face. She opens her mouth and exposes shiny metal braces. The glasses she wears dwarf her face, but she wanted them because “they’re just like Mom’s.” Then Tricia looks down at her legs. A sob erupts. She jerks her head toward her reflection. “Four-eyed, brace-faced, bird legs,” she says, voice filled with contempt. This isn’t the first time she’s repeated the names her classmates call her while she stares at herself, feeling unadulterated revulsion for her appearance. From the counter, she yanks the orthodontic headgear the dentist said she must wear nightly and tosses it into a drawer. Kelli tries to hurry Tricia out of the bathroom, but the younger girl glares at the closed door and yells, “I’ll be out in a minute!”

A few minutes later when Tricia opens the door, Kelli whispers, “It’s about time, dumb ass.” She sails into the bathroom and closes the door. When she turns to the mirror, the sour expression she wears disappears. She poses this way and that. Obviously pleased with what she sees, she smiles. Pulling her long hair into a ponytail, she reaches for the shower cap. When she drops her robe and turns sideways, a glint of fear changes her expression. She rubs her hand over her still-flat stomach, and bites her lip. Seconds later, she hunches over the toilet and deposits her breakfast. Jean knocks on the door, asking if “Kelli Belly” is okay. Kelli wipes her mouth; she lies, saying it’s just a touch of stomach flu.

After Kelli showers and leaves the bathroom, Jean enters. She heaves a loud sigh, drops her robe, and steps on the scale she’s scooted away from the wall. Her second sigh is louder. She puts the robe back on and kicks the scale back into the corner where it belongs. Her brow is furrowed when she glares at herself in the mirror. She’s taken to heart her husband’s teasing “pudgy” comment from last night. A tap tap tap comes at the door, and he pops his head in, saying, “Hey Babe …”

Jean, who usually calls her husband sweetie or honey, verbally backs Don away from the door. “Babe? Babe? Like that big fat pig in that movie? Is that what you’re trying to say?” She slams the door in his face then picks up the hair dryer and looks as if she’s about to throw it at the mirror.

In the bedroom, Don stares in the dresser mirror. He wears a bewildered expression. Aloud he says, “Women! I swear to God I’ll never figure them out.”  ⚡

Black sackcloth ripples in the wind, leaving a trail of fear in its wake, the snap of the cloth on my body the only indication I have passed. 

No one sees my approach. 

No one expects to see me. 

No one notices me until I want them to, and then it’s too late. 

I fly through the night air, not touching the ground, as I can only stand on the earth to perform my duty. Those who have reached their time to die surrender their lives to me, their souls going to my master. 

The night’s chill air against the exposed bones of my body is blissful, akin to the touch of a woman. I remember my time in life, how a woman’s touch brought sensations. As the ragged flesh caresses the smooth bone, I can feel it again, the intimate caress of flesh on flesh. I shiver, but from pleasure rather than cold. 

Yes, I crave that sensation. 

I have always been death, even when I was a living being. That was long ago, before I came into the service of my master. 

In another life, I killed without prejudice, without discrimination - an assassin. I dedicated my life to killing for money, or in a few cases, pleasure. Kings, queens, and nobles fell to my blade. I relished in the flow of warm sticky blood, down my blade, and across my fingers. I laughed as the dying breath escaped my quarry, and they realized their end had come. 

I was a god. 

Still, I wish to return to life, so I may feel a woman again, to experience the life draining away from my prey. I know I can’t return to life, but I yearn for it more. 

I died one night when I became a victim of deception. A man hired me to carry out a job, but he set me up, and I didn’t realize it until too late. As I entered a castle, a guard caught me unawares, felling me with his blade. The look of glee on his face told me he was not what he seemed. His eyes blazed with orange intensity, like the fires of hell itself, and his smile betrayed razor sharp teeth. He stank of sulfur and decay, and an aura of evil surrounded him, the air around him chilled with his malice as dark laughter filled the air. 

He was death. 

When I reflect back to that time, I know my killer served my master much like I do now. My master wishes to take over the world, and he needs an army of the world’s most ruthless killers to help him gain dominion. My death served to add another to his ranks, another assassin to assist him in his plans. 

My master taught me everyone gets their due. Karma, he calls it. He said, he who kills is destined to be killed. Karma caught up to me on that night, when a being disguised as a guard took me down. Despite the embarrassment of being defeated, it taught me even the mouse can defeat the cat, and I should remain vigilant. 

My destination comes into view as I pass through a fog bank, a chateau nestled in the countryside of France. The chateau looks familiar, but I visited so many chateaux in my time as an assassin they all have started to look the same. 

My task is simple - to kill someone. An assignment my master said I should handle personally. So I passed back through time to collect this soul for him, without question. 

I set down just inside the castle wall, and change my form into a castle guard. My sackcloth reforms itself into armor, clothing, and skin. My scythe changes into a sword, a bit large for my tastes, but guards didn’t carry the smaller blades I preferred, and my disguise must be perfect. I take a moment to look myself over, pleased with the work I have done. 

Hiding near the back gate, I find a good position to snare my quarry as he enters. My target is a fellow assassin, but then again, my targets are always assassins. I always enjoy a chance to meet someone in the profession, even if I have to kill them. 

My prey approaches, the thrill of the kill energizing me. I move closer, and wait. He walks past me, and I size him up before striking. I cannot help but feel a kinship to this man. Bumping him on the leg with my boot, I get his attention. His gaze turns to me and the rank smell of sweat rises, carrying with it his fear. 

I bring down my blade, slicing him through the left shoulder, stopping just past his heart. Blood flows down his chest, and I can feel his life vanishing, gushing from the wound. 

I grin at my prey and laugh. Pleasure runs through me as his blood washes over my hands, his life draining away into the ground. I allow my pointed fangs to be seen, and my eyes burn. 

I hear a dark laughter behind me, a sound I recognize. I turn, and in a deep shadow I find the man who hired me on that fateful night. His form changes, and reveals my master, now smiling and drinking in the irony of what he had done. 

I look down and realize my prey is not just anyone. The chateau, the very night itself is familiar, and now I know why. 

My own eyes look back at me, and I watch as the life inside them goes out.  ⚡