Here's a short story I finished up recently, called Herbs and Iron. It's pretty short, clocking in at just over 2400 words. Anyway, let me know what you think.
He stepped out of the car and felt the touch of hard pavement beneath his feet – or, beneath his foot, anyway. Obviously, there was no sensation in the prosthetic.
It had been a long time since he’d visited this house. He eyed the vinyl siding and the slate roof tiles, the overgrown shrubbery and the verdant lawn, the brick chimney and the glossy windows.
As he strode down the driveway, the limp was hardly even noticeable.
Crack.
The ear-shattering blast of a high-powered rifle rattled Clark’s eardrum. “Nailed him. Good shit, Gilman.”
“Good’s the only kind I do.” Like his partner, Gilman lay prone, clad in a camouflaged ACU. He was a scorpion in the hot Iraqi dunes, waiting to sting with his M21 sniper rifle. “Don’t think they saw us.”
“Nope.” Clark surveyed the landscape through his roof-prism binoculars. He stared at the bombed-out building and the new splotch of paint they had just added to its cement façade. Only, the paint was an insurgent’s blood, his jellied brains the palette, and Gilman’s rifle the paintbrush.
Gilman pulled a pencil out of his pocket. “Don’t look like he’ll be getting up for another round.”
“What?”
“Hard to fight without a head, ain’t it?”
“Oh.” Clark examined the street corner through the binoculars’ high-magnification lenses. A mother dragged her crying child away from the scene, lest they be caught in the crossfire. “Yeah.”
“Hey,” Gilman said, “what’s a percussion instrument, nine letters, second letter Y?”
“Huh?”
“Percussion instrument. Nine letters. Second letter Y.”
Clark sighed. “Jesus. Seriously? You’re doing crosswords out here?”
Gilman flashed his teeth. “That’s what I love about this shit.”
“What?”
“Waste one ragmonkey, the rest fall in line. Gives me time to pursue the finer things in life.”
“Think Uncle Sam knew you’d be doing word puzzles when he issued you that Leupold?”
Gilman shrugged. “That’s what you’re here for. You spot. I shoot. Great system, ain’t it?”
The house was closer now. He slowed and glanced at the plastic bag in his hand. It felt heavy, as though he’d been carrying a weighty dumbbell. There was no dumbbell in the bag, however, merely a tiny plastic bottle and a receipt for twelve dollars.
Maybe this was a mistake.
Maybe he shouldn’t have driven out here.
No. He’d already come this far. Turning back now would be foolish.
He reached the front stoop and stopped just short of the steps.
Gilman wrote something in the crossword grid. Most of the puzzle remained blank, an ink lattice of stacked white boxes waiting to be filled. “See anything?”
“Still nothing. I think you shook them up pretty good.”
“Like I said. Frag one, the rest fall back to their caves.”
Clark cocked an eyebrow. “Caves? It’s a city, smartass.”
“Whatever. You gonna help me with this crossword or not?”
Clark laughed, though he was sure to maintain a visual on the city’s perimeter. “I end up doing the whole thing for you. Every god damn time.”
“Hey, now. I’m getting better. Practice makes perfect and all that jazz. Anyway, percussion instrument. Nine letters, second letter–”
“Xylophone,” Clark said, without skipping a beat.
Gilman scribbled on the paper. “Thankyouverymuch. Let’s see, forty-four across. Foster of movie stardom. That’s an easy one. Jodie, right?”
Clark gritted his teeth. He remained silent.
“Shit,” Gilman said. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I saw it and said it out loud without thinking. My bad.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I’m over it.”
Gilman shifted in the sand and swiveled around to look at his comrade. “Really? ‘Cause I sure as hell wouldn’t be.”
“Well, you’re you and I’m me.”
“Good for you, man. You’re better off without that whore.”
Clark’s head snapped in his partner’s direction. “The hell gives you the right to say that?”
“Yeesh. Sorry.”
“She wasn’t a whore.”
Gilman rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”
A nippy autumn breeze yanked a crimson leaf off a maple branch. He lost track of the leaf as it got mixed in with a whirl of other leaves.
He scanned the rolling hills, soaked up the sunlight, and absorbed the majestic sight of a hundred million blades of grass.
Languidly, he sashayed to the front door. He still hadn’t gotten used to walking around with a fake leg. Sometimes, he liked to imagine he was a pirate with a wooden peg leg. He always had to remind himself how childish that was.
He took a deep breath and rang the bell.
A sweltering draft brushed against Clark’s skin. Though rivulets of sweat cascaded down his face, the humid Baghdad air prevented it from evaporating. He brought a canteen to his lips for a drink of water. “She wasn’t a whore.”
“Okay.” Gilman put his palms up. “Sorry I brought it up, Sally Sensitive.”
“It was mostly my fault, anyway.”
Gilman wrote a letter in the crossword grid. “Your fault?”
“Every night, I came home dead tired. All I wanted to do was eat and crash on the bed. Never complimented her on her cooking, even though I knew she’d spent two hours whipping up dinner just for me. Ignored her when I should’ve told her how much I appreciated her.”
“Shit, man.” Gilman smirked. “Should’ve told me you were gonna be such a downer. I would’ve brought a box of Kleenex.”
“Doesn’t matter now. It’s all in the past.”
“Clearly, it ain’t.”
Clark steadied the binoculars. “Hey, pick up your gun. Two o’clock, by the jalopy.”
Gilman shimmied into position and aimed down his scope. “Bastard with the AK?”
“That’s the one.”
“Christ. Didn’t he see his buddy’s brains on the wall?” Gilman squinted, steadied his hands, and gulped a big breath of air. He pulled the trigger.
Through the binoculars, Clark saw part of the insurgent’s upper torso explode into a bloody pulp. By the time the pieces landed on the dirt, they looked like ground beef from the meat aisle of a grocery store. “Bingo.”
“God damn. Blew his shoulder clean off.” Gilman grinned wide. “Achievement unlocked. Descapulation.”
For a brief instant, Clark stared wistfully at the huge ball of fire in the sky, then shook his head. “Why was I so blind?”
“Blind?” Gilman said. “Hajji in tan khakis at 400 meters. That ain’t blind.”
“Wasn’t talking about that.”
“Jesus. Still stuck on her? All right, man. Let it all out. Uncle Gil’s here for you.”
Clark’s face never wandered away from the binoculars. “She kept trying to reel me back in, reignite that spark, bring us closer together. I kept pushing away.”
“You’re one big jumble of clichés today, Clarky malarkey.”
“If I could go back right now, I’d tell her I was sorry. For everything.” Clark wiped a stream of perspiration off his forehead. “Hey, Gilman. When’re you ETS’ing?”
Gilman tilted his head and smiled. “33 more days.”
“Double digit ******, eh? Good for you.”
“Yep. Can’t wait till I’m back in Palm Beach. Olives and martinis, blondes in bikinis. What about you? How long till you’re stateside?”
Clark sighed. “215 days.”
“Ouch.”
“First thing I’m going to do when I get back is see her and apologize.”
Gilman snorted. “Hey, you know, there’s this new thing nowadays. It’s called q-mail, I think, or f-mail… Some letter and then the word mail.” He snapped his fingers. “E. That’s it. E-mail.”
“Really something I’d rather do in person.”
“Listen, man. As your duly appointed buddy and comrade-in-arms, I’m going to help you outta this rut. Forget her. I’ve got the perfect tampon for your blubbering vagina. It’s called a crossword. I want you to think about words, not birds. Acrosses and downs will fix your frowns. Sure, a bottle of bourbon would be better, but we’ll make do with what we’ve got.”
Clark turned to check a mass of buildings in the distance. “Have it your way.”
“Okay, what do we have? Fifteen down. Blank Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray poem. Five letters.”
“Uh, let’s see. Poem title? Elegy. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
“Looks like somebody paid attention in English class. Seventeen across. View in a mirror. Ten letters, third letter F.”
“Reflection.”
“Thirty-nine down. Herb oft used in cooking. Five letters, fourth letter M.”
Clark exhaled. “Thyme.”
“Fits like a glove.”
“You know, if I brought her a bottle of that stuff and I said, ‘I have thyme for you now,’ it’d probably make her laugh.”
Gilman contorted his face. “What?”
“Because time and thyme–”
“Oh, no. I get it,” Gilman said. “But, seriously?”
“She was into cheesy stuff like that. Maybe she’d appreciate the gesture, you know?”
“You could do that. Or you could remove your testicles from their display case and put ‘em back in your nut sack where they belong.”
“Laugh if you want, but I’m going to do it.”
Gilman chortled. “Whatever you say, bud.”
Clark peered into the binoculars. “Son of a bitch. Group of five, taking cover behind the stone wall. Armed. Another four moving into position by the pharmacy.”
Gilman looked downrange through his scope. “Shit. Is that a mortar crew?”
Without warning, a plume of sand erupted out of the ground twenty-five yards from their position. Then, they heard the crack and thump of semi-automatic weapon fire.
Clark twisted around to get a handle on the radio. “Odin, this is Archer. Do you–”
A resounding blast from Gilman’s M21 interrupted his transmission.
“Do you copy?” Clark continued.
“Copy, Archer,” the radio squawked back. “Loud and clear.”
“We’re taking small-arms fire at grid location Mike Tango Foxtrot. I repeat, we’re taking fire from numerous armed personnel.” Several rounds whizzed past, no more than ten or fifteen feet over their heads. The enemy gunfire melded into a flurry of echoing clicks, and there were pops as bullets hit the ground behind them. Clark readied his M16, double-checked to ensure that it was on semi-auto, and took aim at the little round heads jutting over the wall in the distance.
“Roger that,” came the radio’s muffled reply. It was hard to hear over the intermittently deafening M16 and the soft clanks of spent cartridges being ejected from the weapon. “Isis is en route to your location. Be advised, they’ll be coming in hot. Stand by for egress.”
“Time to un-ass the AO,” Gilman said.
Clark repeatedly pulled the trigger with surgical precision, offending his eardrums and forcing the insurgents to stay out of sight. It was one big barrage of noise, smoke, and adrenaline.
All of a sudden, the air hissed like a jet turbine churning at full power. Clark’s leg turned into lava. The world went black.
He put his ear up to the door. The thrumming vibration of footsteps greeted him. Somebody was coming to answer the doorbell.
With a nervous contraction of his diaphragm, he took a deep breath. Then, he glanced at the plastic bag in his hand.
Clark came to in a windy, reverberating metal box. The first thing he became aware of was a searing sensation in his calf, as though someone had hacked the flesh to bits with a butcher knife and then taken a cheese grater to the bone.
“He’s up,” Gilman said over the din of the rotors. “What’d I tell you, huh? One tough S.O.B.”
“More gauze!” an unfamiliar voice yelled.
“Sergeant,” another voice said. “I need you to remain still.”
The helicopter banked right. Clark felt his insides squirming, trying to get out of his skin. He retched and vomited.
Gilman, smiling ear to ear, tapped him on the shoulder. He gave Clark a thumbs-up. “This is your ticket outta here, man. Hell, you’ll be home before I am.”
Clark’s head spun round and round like a carousel. He cradled his neck against a steel case of ammunition and closed his eyes.
“Hang in there, buddy.”
There was movement in the window beside the door. The blinds fluttered as somebody peeked at the uninvited guest. He waved at the person behind the window.
When Clark awoke, he found himself draped by a flimsy linen sheet in a hospital bed. Looking out the room’s window, he could see American soil. At least, he thought it was American soil. Maybe it was German. Either way, it was an improvement over the hellhole he’d just come from.
A doctor walked into the room, pushing the privacy curtain aside. Clark tried to listen to what he said, but the painkillers fought him every step of the way. All he managed to understand was something about “severe tissue damage,” “fitting,” and “therapy.”
Click. Somebody fidgeted with the lock on the other side of the door. Any second now, the knob would turn.
He could almost smell that strawberry scented shampoo again.
Clark stood abreast of a line of soldiers, all dressed in their Class A uniforms, at the front of a crowded room. An officer addressed the seated audience from a lectern. He extolled the virtues of service and venerated the sacrifices made by those standing.
After the speech, another officer walked up to each soldier as his or her name was called. The officer pinned an award to their uniforms, commended them, and shook their hands.
At the end of the ceremony, everybody applauded the recipients.
Clark didn’t care. The room was stifling. He needed some air. He needed to get out. There was someplace else he had to be.
The door swung open. An elderly lady stood in the doorway. “Yes?”
Confused, he furrowed his brow. “I’m looking for Jodie.”
“You’ll have to speak up,” the lady said, “I can’t hear like I used to.”
“Jodie,” he said. “Jodie Kowalski.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think you have the wrong address.”
A man’s voice emanated from within the house. “She lived here before us, grandma.”
The lady’s face drooped. “Ah, yes. That’s right. Poor girl.”
He looked to her expectantly.
“Oh, my,” the lady said. “Didn’t you hear? She was in a car accident last winter. She… didn’t make it.”
The air sucked itself out of his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My condolences.”
The hollow words fell on deaf ears. Sluggishly, he turned around and limped back to the car, carrying a plastic bag with a little bottle and a bruised purple heart. He discarded them both near the mailbox, plopped himself and his bum leg in the driver’s seat, and drove off.
Herbs and Iron
He stepped out of the car and felt the touch of hard pavement beneath his feet – or, beneath his foot, anyway. Obviously, there was no sensation in the prosthetic.
It had been a long time since he’d visited this house. He eyed the vinyl siding and the slate roof tiles, the overgrown shrubbery and the verdant lawn, the brick chimney and the glossy windows.
As he strode down the driveway, the limp was hardly even noticeable.
. . .
The ear-shattering blast of a high-powered rifle rattled Clark’s eardrum. “Nailed him. Good shit, Gilman.”
“Good’s the only kind I do.” Like his partner, Gilman lay prone, clad in a camouflaged ACU. He was a scorpion in the hot Iraqi dunes, waiting to sting with his M21 sniper rifle. “Don’t think they saw us.”
“Nope.” Clark surveyed the landscape through his roof-prism binoculars. He stared at the bombed-out building and the new splotch of paint they had just added to its cement façade. Only, the paint was an insurgent’s blood, his jellied brains the palette, and Gilman’s rifle the paintbrush.
Gilman pulled a pencil out of his pocket. “Don’t look like he’ll be getting up for another round.”
“What?”
“Hard to fight without a head, ain’t it?”
“Oh.” Clark examined the street corner through the binoculars’ high-magnification lenses. A mother dragged her crying child away from the scene, lest they be caught in the crossfire. “Yeah.”
“Hey,” Gilman said, “what’s a percussion instrument, nine letters, second letter Y?”
“Huh?”
“Percussion instrument. Nine letters. Second letter Y.”
Clark sighed. “Jesus. Seriously? You’re doing crosswords out here?”
Gilman flashed his teeth. “That’s what I love about this shit.”
“What?”
“Waste one ragmonkey, the rest fall in line. Gives me time to pursue the finer things in life.”
“Think Uncle Sam knew you’d be doing word puzzles when he issued you that Leupold?”
Gilman shrugged. “That’s what you’re here for. You spot. I shoot. Great system, ain’t it?”
. . .
Maybe this was a mistake.
Maybe he shouldn’t have driven out here.
No. He’d already come this far. Turning back now would be foolish.
He reached the front stoop and stopped just short of the steps.
. . .
“Still nothing. I think you shook them up pretty good.”
“Like I said. Frag one, the rest fall back to their caves.”
Clark cocked an eyebrow. “Caves? It’s a city, smartass.”
“Whatever. You gonna help me with this crossword or not?”
Clark laughed, though he was sure to maintain a visual on the city’s perimeter. “I end up doing the whole thing for you. Every god damn time.”
“Hey, now. I’m getting better. Practice makes perfect and all that jazz. Anyway, percussion instrument. Nine letters, second letter–”
“Xylophone,” Clark said, without skipping a beat.
Gilman scribbled on the paper. “Thankyouverymuch. Let’s see, forty-four across. Foster of movie stardom. That’s an easy one. Jodie, right?”
Clark gritted his teeth. He remained silent.
“Shit,” Gilman said. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I saw it and said it out loud without thinking. My bad.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I’m over it.”
Gilman shifted in the sand and swiveled around to look at his comrade. “Really? ‘Cause I sure as hell wouldn’t be.”
“Well, you’re you and I’m me.”
“Good for you, man. You’re better off without that whore.”
Clark’s head snapped in his partner’s direction. “The hell gives you the right to say that?”
“Yeesh. Sorry.”
“She wasn’t a whore.”
Gilman rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”
. . .
A nippy autumn breeze yanked a crimson leaf off a maple branch. He lost track of the leaf as it got mixed in with a whirl of other leaves.
He scanned the rolling hills, soaked up the sunlight, and absorbed the majestic sight of a hundred million blades of grass.
Languidly, he sashayed to the front door. He still hadn’t gotten used to walking around with a fake leg. Sometimes, he liked to imagine he was a pirate with a wooden peg leg. He always had to remind himself how childish that was.
He took a deep breath and rang the bell.
. . .
“Okay.” Gilman put his palms up. “Sorry I brought it up, Sally Sensitive.”
“It was mostly my fault, anyway.”
Gilman wrote a letter in the crossword grid. “Your fault?”
“Every night, I came home dead tired. All I wanted to do was eat and crash on the bed. Never complimented her on her cooking, even though I knew she’d spent two hours whipping up dinner just for me. Ignored her when I should’ve told her how much I appreciated her.”
“Shit, man.” Gilman smirked. “Should’ve told me you were gonna be such a downer. I would’ve brought a box of Kleenex.”
“Doesn’t matter now. It’s all in the past.”
“Clearly, it ain’t.”
Clark steadied the binoculars. “Hey, pick up your gun. Two o’clock, by the jalopy.”
Gilman shimmied into position and aimed down his scope. “Bastard with the AK?”
“That’s the one.”
“Christ. Didn’t he see his buddy’s brains on the wall?” Gilman squinted, steadied his hands, and gulped a big breath of air. He pulled the trigger.
Through the binoculars, Clark saw part of the insurgent’s upper torso explode into a bloody pulp. By the time the pieces landed on the dirt, they looked like ground beef from the meat aisle of a grocery store. “Bingo.”
“God damn. Blew his shoulder clean off.” Gilman grinned wide. “Achievement unlocked. Descapulation.”
For a brief instant, Clark stared wistfully at the huge ball of fire in the sky, then shook his head. “Why was I so blind?”
“Blind?” Gilman said. “Hajji in tan khakis at 400 meters. That ain’t blind.”
“Wasn’t talking about that.”
“Jesus. Still stuck on her? All right, man. Let it all out. Uncle Gil’s here for you.”
Clark’s face never wandered away from the binoculars. “She kept trying to reel me back in, reignite that spark, bring us closer together. I kept pushing away.”
“You’re one big jumble of clichés today, Clarky malarkey.”
“If I could go back right now, I’d tell her I was sorry. For everything.” Clark wiped a stream of perspiration off his forehead. “Hey, Gilman. When’re you ETS’ing?”
Gilman tilted his head and smiled. “33 more days.”
“Double digit ******, eh? Good for you.”
“Yep. Can’t wait till I’m back in Palm Beach. Olives and martinis, blondes in bikinis. What about you? How long till you’re stateside?”
Clark sighed. “215 days.”
“Ouch.”
“First thing I’m going to do when I get back is see her and apologize.”
Gilman snorted. “Hey, you know, there’s this new thing nowadays. It’s called q-mail, I think, or f-mail… Some letter and then the word mail.” He snapped his fingers. “E. That’s it. E-mail.”
“Really something I’d rather do in person.”
“Listen, man. As your duly appointed buddy and comrade-in-arms, I’m going to help you outta this rut. Forget her. I’ve got the perfect tampon for your blubbering vagina. It’s called a crossword. I want you to think about words, not birds. Acrosses and downs will fix your frowns. Sure, a bottle of bourbon would be better, but we’ll make do with what we’ve got.”
Clark turned to check a mass of buildings in the distance. “Have it your way.”
“Okay, what do we have? Fifteen down. Blank Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray poem. Five letters.”
“Uh, let’s see. Poem title? Elegy. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
“Looks like somebody paid attention in English class. Seventeen across. View in a mirror. Ten letters, third letter F.”
“Reflection.”
“Thirty-nine down. Herb oft used in cooking. Five letters, fourth letter M.”
Clark exhaled. “Thyme.”
“Fits like a glove.”
“You know, if I brought her a bottle of that stuff and I said, ‘I have thyme for you now,’ it’d probably make her laugh.”
Gilman contorted his face. “What?”
“Because time and thyme–”
“Oh, no. I get it,” Gilman said. “But, seriously?”
“She was into cheesy stuff like that. Maybe she’d appreciate the gesture, you know?”
“You could do that. Or you could remove your testicles from their display case and put ‘em back in your nut sack where they belong.”
“Laugh if you want, but I’m going to do it.”
Gilman chortled. “Whatever you say, bud.”
Clark peered into the binoculars. “Son of a bitch. Group of five, taking cover behind the stone wall. Armed. Another four moving into position by the pharmacy.”
Gilman looked downrange through his scope. “Shit. Is that a mortar crew?”
Without warning, a plume of sand erupted out of the ground twenty-five yards from their position. Then, they heard the crack and thump of semi-automatic weapon fire.
Clark twisted around to get a handle on the radio. “Odin, this is Archer. Do you–”
A resounding blast from Gilman’s M21 interrupted his transmission.
“Do you copy?” Clark continued.
“Copy, Archer,” the radio squawked back. “Loud and clear.”
“We’re taking small-arms fire at grid location Mike Tango Foxtrot. I repeat, we’re taking fire from numerous armed personnel.” Several rounds whizzed past, no more than ten or fifteen feet over their heads. The enemy gunfire melded into a flurry of echoing clicks, and there were pops as bullets hit the ground behind them. Clark readied his M16, double-checked to ensure that it was on semi-auto, and took aim at the little round heads jutting over the wall in the distance.
“Roger that,” came the radio’s muffled reply. It was hard to hear over the intermittently deafening M16 and the soft clanks of spent cartridges being ejected from the weapon. “Isis is en route to your location. Be advised, they’ll be coming in hot. Stand by for egress.”
“Time to un-ass the AO,” Gilman said.
Clark repeatedly pulled the trigger with surgical precision, offending his eardrums and forcing the insurgents to stay out of sight. It was one big barrage of noise, smoke, and adrenaline.
All of a sudden, the air hissed like a jet turbine churning at full power. Clark’s leg turned into lava. The world went black.
. . .
He put his ear up to the door. The thrumming vibration of footsteps greeted him. Somebody was coming to answer the doorbell.
With a nervous contraction of his diaphragm, he took a deep breath. Then, he glanced at the plastic bag in his hand.
. . .
“He’s up,” Gilman said over the din of the rotors. “What’d I tell you, huh? One tough S.O.B.”
“More gauze!” an unfamiliar voice yelled.
“Sergeant,” another voice said. “I need you to remain still.”
The helicopter banked right. Clark felt his insides squirming, trying to get out of his skin. He retched and vomited.
Gilman, smiling ear to ear, tapped him on the shoulder. He gave Clark a thumbs-up. “This is your ticket outta here, man. Hell, you’ll be home before I am.”
Clark’s head spun round and round like a carousel. He cradled his neck against a steel case of ammunition and closed his eyes.
“Hang in there, buddy.”
. . .
. . .
When Clark awoke, he found himself draped by a flimsy linen sheet in a hospital bed. Looking out the room’s window, he could see American soil. At least, he thought it was American soil. Maybe it was German. Either way, it was an improvement over the hellhole he’d just come from.
A doctor walked into the room, pushing the privacy curtain aside. Clark tried to listen to what he said, but the painkillers fought him every step of the way. All he managed to understand was something about “severe tissue damage,” “fitting,” and “therapy.”
. . .
Click. Somebody fidgeted with the lock on the other side of the door. Any second now, the knob would turn.
He could almost smell that strawberry scented shampoo again.
. . .
After the speech, another officer walked up to each soldier as his or her name was called. The officer pinned an award to their uniforms, commended them, and shook their hands.
At the end of the ceremony, everybody applauded the recipients.
Clark didn’t care. The room was stifling. He needed some air. He needed to get out. There was someplace else he had to be.
. . .
The door swung open. An elderly lady stood in the doorway. “Yes?”
Confused, he furrowed his brow. “I’m looking for Jodie.”
“You’ll have to speak up,” the lady said, “I can’t hear like I used to.”
“Jodie,” he said. “Jodie Kowalski.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think you have the wrong address.”
A man’s voice emanated from within the house. “She lived here before us, grandma.”
The lady’s face drooped. “Ah, yes. That’s right. Poor girl.”
He looked to her expectantly.
“Oh, my,” the lady said. “Didn’t you hear? She was in a car accident last winter. She… didn’t make it.”
The air sucked itself out of his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My condolences.”
The hollow words fell on deaf ears. Sluggishly, he turned around and limped back to the car, carrying a plastic bag with a little bottle and a bruised purple heart. He discarded them both near the mailbox, plopped himself and his bum leg in the driver’s seat, and drove off.
