Tag Archives: Short story

Short Story: The Cheater

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“Can I come over?”

That was the last thing Lizza had expected to hear from her ex-husband, a man who spent their entire marriage cheating on her, the last time with her friend in her own bed.

“Why the hell should I let you?” Lizza asked. “We’re over. You chose that skank over me. What ever problem you’re having, I want none of it. I’m done with your drama.”

“Please, Liz-bear?” He begged. “For old times sake?”

In spite of the indignation coursing through her, hearing his old pet name for her thawed her otherwise chilly feelings for him and she relented. “Fine, but no funny business.”

“Thanks, Liz. I’ll see you in fifteen.”

Fifteen minutes? She wondered. Is he already on his way here? She didn’t wait to consider it much more because her apartment was a mess, and she didn’t want him to see just how far she had let herself go. After a quick cursory sweep though the living room, she changed into something a little more appropriate than a short pair of shorts and a tank top.

Twenty minutes later, she heard a knock at the door. She waited for him to knock again before opening the door. “Hey,” she greeted him disinterestedly.

“Hey to you too,” he grimaced. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“Whatever,” Lizza shrugged. “Not to be rude,” she said as she closed the door, “but what the hell do you want?”

“You’re not at least going to invite me to sit?”

“I don’t want you to think you’re welcome here,” she retorted, “but what the fuck, make yourself comfortable.”

“Thanks.” He maneuvered awkwardly around his ex since she refused to budge and got comfortable on the futon. “This is cozy. I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Seriously, I’m not up to idle chit-chat. What do you want?”

“Right,” he grew serious and cleared his throat. “Lizza, I made a mistake…”

“No, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever it is you’re doing, just don’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh spare me,” Lizza spat. “I gave you the best years of my life, and for what? To see you time and again fooling around my back? I put up with it once, but I won’t be your fool again.”

“Sandy’s pregnant,” he blurted out in obvious distress.

“So?”

“So? She doesn’t know who the father is, only that it’s not me. She made get a vasectomy before we could…”

“I don’t need the particulars,” Lizza stopped him, a look of revulsion on her face. “Why should I care?”

“Because I get it. I understand now what I did and how I wronged you. I understand the hurt I caused you and I want a chance to make amends. I want a chance to be the man, to be the husband you needed me to be.”

“No,” Lizza shook her head sadly, “you want the chance to reclaim your manhood, but I’m not giving you that chance.”

“But why?”

“Because I’ve moved on.”

“You call this moving on?

“I do,” Lizza responded defiantly. “You broke me, shattered me into a million little pieces, or at least I thought you did, but I pulled myself together. I realized that I let myself be defined by you, by our marriage, by your need to control me and your need to satisfy yourself with all those girls you chose to screw behind my back.”

“But…,”

“No. I’m done listening to you. Yeah, I don’t have much,” Lizza glanced around at her sparse surroundings, “but I have everything I need. I’m taking care of myself for the first time in my life, and you know what I found out?”

“No, what?”

“That I can do it. I can be independent. I can take care of myself, and I don’t need a man to do everything for me. I don’t need to have to take care of anyone, either. It’s just me and I’m loving the freedom I found when I left you. I can go out or stay in at my leisure. I can read in total silence, and I don’t have to wonder where you are or who you’re with.

“I loved you, or at least I thought I did, but I think I was just scared to be alone. It’s not that bad. In fact, it’s been a blessing. So, no. If you’re hoping for yet another chance, don’t bother. I’m sorry it’s not working out with Sandy, but she cheated on her husband to be with you. Why did you expect that she wouldn’t cheat on you?”

“That’s below the belt,” he pouted.

“No, it’s just the truth.” Lizza sat on the futon beside him and put her hand on his knee. “I wish I could say the pain goes away, but that feeling of being insignificant, of not being able to satisfy your partner might never go away. It hasn’t for me. You’re going to have to deal with it on your own. It’s not my responsibility to help you through it.”

“Fine,” he said in a resigned voice. “I knew it was a long shot to begin with.” He stood up and walked to the door. “I guess I’ll be seeing you?”

“Maybe, but not like this. I don’t want you to come crying to me when it doesn’t work out with one of your floozies. Good bye.”

She watched impassively as her ex walked out, slamming the door behind him. With him gone, she changed back into her skimpy outfit she had one before he called, pulled out a joint and lit it. Once she felt relaxed, she pulled out her phone and called her friend.

“Dante? It’s Lizza. You were right,” she laughed.” He came crawling back to me, just like you said he would. I told him I didn’t want him back. As for tonight, it’s still on. I never let my marriage to that joke get in the way of our fun time did I? No. Just make sure you and the guys are ready to have some fun. I’ll be over some time after dark, and hey, clean sheets this time, okay? Can’t wait. Bye!”

Short Stories

Next story – Revenge is but a game
Previous story – The Girl on Highway 287

Short Story: The girl on Highway 287

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287There was a girl who flitted in the periphery of my vision last Friday, as I drove down Highway 287 though Childress. I saw her only for an instant, mere seconds in my lifetime, but the image burned itself in my memory. Odd that it should happen, but why?

Let me tell you what I saw. She was young, maybe in her early twenties, with fair skin and light brown hair. I saw her walking down the highway, busy looking at her phone as she did so. She appeared to be with child, and I couldn’t help wonder who she was.

Why was she walking down 287? Where was she going? Where was the baby’s daddy? Was he in the picture? I began to invent a back story for her, the pregnant woman on Highway 287:

She was walking to the store, having no other way to get there. The child’s father is not in the picture, he being too busy chasing skirts to take responsibility for the baby about to be born. Alone, and with no one to help her, she walked, needing to buy groceries with her meager wages.

I imagined her manager, a guy named Rudy, giving her flack for being pregnant. Her doctor hinted that she may need to be put on bed rest soon, and Ruby is resisting, hinting that her job would not be waiting for her should she return. He knows the mother-to-be has no way to fight him, and he’s the kind of jerk that enjoys ruining people’s lives.

She’s worried about her job, and in turn where she will live. Without a job, she could be thrown out, in the dead of winter, with a baby in her womb, or worse a newborn in her arms. Then she worries about how she will eat, and how she will provide for her unborn child.

But there’s a guy, a guy who likes her. He cares for her in spite of the fact that she carries another man’s child. He loves her for no other reason than because he does. He offers her a place to stay, with no expectations of payment, financial or otherwise, but she hesitates. “Why are you doing this?” She asks. “Don’t you know?” He answers.

“You’re the only one who stood up for me, back in 6th grade, when the bullies picked on me for being so small. You’re the only one who cared enough not to laugh at my tears. Instead you dried them with your sleeves and helped me up. You’re the only one who dared to be my friend. Let me be your friend now.”

So she accepts, until the baby’s daddy finds out. Jealous, he comes back into the picture to take her back, which she falls for. She moves in with him, forsaking the friendship for a man who dumped her so callously when she told him about the baby. In no time she finds out that he may be taking care of her, but he has others on the side to play with.

“Why can’t I find a good man?” She complains to the friend she forsook. “Why are all guys such jerks?”

“Because you don’t see me,” her friend says quietly. “I’m a good guy, or so I’m told, but no one sees me, no one wants me. I’m tired of being the good guy no one wants.”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone. Any girl would be lucky to have you.”

“What about you? Could you like a guy like me?”

“What?” She asks in astonishment. “You’re a great guy, but you’re too good for me. You deserve better.”

“And because I deserve better,” he says bitterly, “I never get anything. So be it. I’m done.”

“Wait, what do you mean you’re done?”

“I can’t keep holding on, hoping you, or anyone else will notice me. I’m done with women.”

“You can’t! You’ll find someone, I promise.”

“You promise?” He snorted. “When will this mysterious woman appear? I can’t wait forever. No, I’m done. And you? You complain you can’t find someone good, but when some one good want you, you reject him. Don’t complain about the men in your life because you decided you deserve them. It’s the road you chose.”

In the end, she’s left to raise a child on her own, after the baby’s daddy decides he doesn’t want to play the father, when no one else threatens to take his place. She’s left to subsist on welfare, living in a slum with no job and buying food on food stamps. 

She’s alone, trudging down the highway, until another loser picks her up, and she accepts because she has no other choice. 

I imagine this of her, the girl on Highway 287 after only catching a glimpse of her as I drove by. I felt sorry for her, and I don’t know why. She sounds like a bitch.

Short Stories

Next Story – The Cheater

Impossible standards

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Welcome to day 2 of Camp NaNoWriMo! How are you doing? I’m up to 1023 words, though I have yet to write today. I plan to write a bit after I’m done with my brief update.

I’m not far enough in to make any judgments, but It’s hard not to be judgmental about my own writing. It’s CRAP!!! Okay, probably not, but what I find so damn frustrating about writing is having a clear idea of what I want to say and then failing to do so. Again, I haven’t written enough to feel that way, but I already do, of course. Am I alone in feeling this way?

I’m overreacting. I should let go and let the story evolve as it will, but I can’t. I want it to be the way I mean it to be! Also, I want to write a perfect copy, one that needs no proofreading or editing. Perhaps another sign of my lunacy?

By the time I write my final line, I’m sure I’ll be simultaneously elated and horrified by the results of my labor. I’ll feel pride that I wrote this particular work while feeling ashamed that I haven’t lived up to my impossible standards. Surly, you understand. It’ll be fine. I just have to remember to type away and worry about cleaning up my writing once I’m done.

Before I get off for the night, I just want to add that I finished The Ship, by Allan Krummenacker, and I can’t wait to share my thoughts with you. I urge you to check out my review for The Bridge, before my next review goes live on Monday.

Camp NaNo is about to begin

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2014-Participant-Twitter-Header-2Camp NaNoWriMo opens up in about 12 hours and I’ll admit to feeling some apprehension. I’m not going to pretend that apprehension is a bad thing. No, I believe it will be a good motivator to prove to myself that I can still do some significant writing. I really hate to fail.

I started participating back in November of 2011 and I killed it. I’ve participated every year since then, and I’ve won every time, if for no other reason than to say I did. I haven’t been as fortunate with Camp NaNo. I’ve tried only a couple of times, failing miserably with my goals. This time around, I have set a modest goal of ten-thousand words. That’s doable, right?

I think it is. If I can’t even do that, how can I claim to be a writer? I know I can do 50-60K in a month, so I’m certain I’ll surpass my goal. I’m not planning on writing a novel, but we will see as we go along. I’m looking at a short story about a woman whose cheating husband is facing death, and her prospects for true love after two decades of neglect.

I have things to say about fidelity and faithlessness, of betrayals and pain, but mostly of reconciling one’s self with the past. I hope to talk about forgiving the unfaithful partner as well as forgiving yourself.

It’s probably too ambitious for a short story, but I’m not dead set on keeping it so short. It’ll be as long as it needs to be to fulfill my objective, thought I don’t see it going past 25K. Again, we will see how it goes.\

That’s enough out of me for now. I’ll let you know how it goes. For those of you who are joining me, good luck! See you on the other side!

 

Short Story: The price of war

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I shouldn’t have to say it, but this is a work of satire. Although wouldn’t it be funny if the idiots on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox reported this as factual? It’s happened too many times to take any chances. This isn’t real!!!

You hear it everyday in the evening news: conflict. In the Middle East, America is the Great Satan. Propagandists are busy indoctrinating their country’s children to hate our country, and the freedom she represents.

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down, but terrorists are quick to fill in the void left in the wake of our leader’s retreat.

North Korea and the mentally unstable regime headed by the sociopath Kim Jong Un are wanting to destabilize the region, and eradicate the fragile illusion of peace.

Now Russia is trying to resurrect their past glory by reviving the old cohesiveness of the Soviet Union, eschewing the democracy that so many lived and died to set into place.

And what of China? India? Pakistan? What of the rest of the world? Who will be the leader building up a cult of personality, whose hubris will march the world closer to annihilation?

The world is indeed a scary place, and more so than it has been since the end of the cold war, and longer since the days of John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust. It’s been more than fifty years since the specter of nuclear war has hung so precariously over humanity.

What can we do?

Hello, my name is John C. Weiss, founder and C.E.O. of Weiss and Fleece National Defense Contractors Inc., with a proposition for our American viewers. The price of peace is at an all time high, and the price of war is sure to bankrupt our government, jeopardizing our sovereignty for the first time in centuries. This is where you can help, and why I’m here calling on you.

As a way to minimize costs for our national defense, I’m asking all patriotic Americans to donate to the Secure Our World Defense Fund. S.O.W. was created with one purpose in mind, to raise funds to build up our national stockpile of chemical and nuclear weapons, as a deterrent to the further escalation of hostilities that heretofore have remained simmering just under the surface, waiting to boil over.

Mutually Assured Destruction may have worked in the past, but it’s high time we build an arsenal that can not only take out our threats, but can also intercept any launch headed towards us, or to any of our remaining allies.  With our Predictive Launch Algorithms, we can now accurately launch a preemptive strike on missile bases in even the most remote of locations.

Further, we intend to build Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, with the names of all our sponsors etched into each individual hull, to let our enemies know once and far all, who paid to kill them, not that they’ll live to read it.

And in desert, we are building a monument, a final testament to the spirit of a race so determined to render itself extinct, that they fought to the death of not only themselves, but to the only known center of life in the universe.

If life does exist out in the cold reaches of space, and in the event they learn to traverse the distances and visit us, then they can witness the monumental stupidity of a race that killed itself, and read the names of the ones responsible. For a one-time donation of $100, you can have a brick engraved on the walk leading to the monument. For $1 Million, you may have an obelisk built in your honor. There are many more options to choose from in between!

Don’t be the only ones left out from this one time special offer to destroy all mankind. Space may be limited, but not as limited as the time of man on Planet Earth. Finance your own destruction. Call now, and the first 500 callers will receive this special t-shirt as a free gift, not that you will have too much time to boast of your murder.

Thank you, and please be generous.

My other short stories