Category: Short Stories

The Drowning

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories3 Comments

How in the hell the news got to us so quickly is still a mystery. One minute, we’re in the middle of the street playing our childish games then, what seemed like only a moment later, we’re standing at the water’s edge. Red lights slashing through the early evening dusk.

We watched as Sheriff Rankin and his brother Will maneuvered their boat around the middle of the lake. Casting a snagging line out like it was just another evening of spoonbill fishing.

Everybody from town was standing around in little groups whispering to each other. Speculating on what, then how, it happened. It seemed that seventeen year old Terry Bowman had tried to swim across the lake by himself. He didn’t make it.

All us guys were standing a few yards away from the somber faces of the adults. We were jabbing each other in the ribs and joking with one another like we had just come out of the movie theatre. Even there in the face of death, our youthful immortality poked its head out. We knew one thing for certain, whatever hand fate had dealt to Terry, it had nothing to do with us.

But the moment they lifted Terry’s body from the boat and laid him gently onto the shore, his blue lips highlighted against his pasty whiteness, his eyes wide open and staring toward the night sky. His mother kneeling over his wrinkled body and crying for God to give him back. That’s when I knew death for the first time in my life. And my youthful naiveté abandoned me.

As I stared into his face, I strange curiosity overtook me. I wondered what thoughts went through Terry’s mind the moment he realized that he was never going to make it to the other side of the lake. As he looked back and saw his friends, highlighted against the setting sun, dancing, singing and making out; when did panic set in?

Was it when his arms turned to rubber and he struggled to just stay afloat that he started looking for some miracle to get him out? Or later when his first gasp for air brought him nothing but a mouth full of water? At what point did he stop fighting and just accept that death was going to take him. Or did he struggle to the very end, never giving up hope?

So as I stood there in silence, watching his mother cradle her son. Her tears dripping into his unblinking eyes and her sobs choking out any words she tried to give to him, my knees buckled and I fell to the ground. I watched her gently rock her baby in her arms and I suddenly hated God for taking him away from her.

That evening, those flashing red lights slicing into the stillness and the sobbing moans of Terry’s mom burned a memory deep into my innocents that I was sure I would never forget.

But the next morning found us all gathered at the ball park laughing and joking like any other summer day. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Except choosing up side was just a little harder now that Terry was gone… but hey, the game must go on.

Starry, Starry Night

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short StoriesLeave a comment

Driving down country roads. Rocks and rubber singing in harmony. Rows of brown corn flash by and disappear behind us. You tune the radio and the melodies form images in our brains. We’re ready to Drift Away on the Midnight Train to Georgia. Your Killing Me Softly with your closeness. I whisper Give Me a Little Love, you sing Dream On. Later, lying on the hood, the warmth from the engine against our backs we stare at the stars in the sky as they dance to the rhythm of Diamond Girl. The radio croons Let’s Get it On.

Crazy Ideas

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short StoriesLeave a comment

Most ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uneconomical and then they turn out to be right – Reed Hastings

We all know the stories “That’s just a wild and crazy idea young man, no one with half a brain would ever pay good money for that. So take your ‘Pet Rock’, ‘Mood Ring’, ‘Bottled Water’, ‘Canned Air’, ‘Beanie Baby’, and ‘Santa Mail’ out of here and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

If you believe in yourself, don’t let people convince you that you’re wrong. Keep on trying.

Do you remember the year?

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories1 Comment

Well John and Mitchy were getting kind of itchy, cause it was kind of a drag to not be groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon. So I said we’re going to San Francisco and I don’t care how much money I gotta spend, so we can fly. Here, the hometown looks the same but, you’re gonna meet some gentle people there and the rows of houses are all the same and nobody seems to care. Nothing is real and there’s nothing to get hung about. So there’s not a trace of doubt in my mind that when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, you can either stand in the pouring rain or hide behind rainbow’s wall.

Now, it was on the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta day you asked me if there’ll come a time that we’ll go riding along on a carousel. I thought you looked too good to be true. You told me, “I aint never loved a man.”

But baby, I need your lovin’ and I know what you want…baby, I got it.

So let’s spend the night together and don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow. Then, all over the world you can hear the sound of lovers in love.

That’s when we skipped the light fandango because we both knew that all you need is Love.

Those Who Wait

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short StoriesLeave a comment

“Things will come to those who wait”

Unfortunately, it will only be the leftovers from those who hustled. You know all the clichés. The early bird gets the worm; first to table gets the hottest food or first come first served. My personal favorite, #1 is always the winner and #2 is just another loser. I think Warren Buffet probably summed it up best in his philosophy for investing. “Always go with the original”. I can’t tell you how many products I’ve seen in my lifetime and said, “Man, I thought of that years ago.” But while I was just thinking about it, someone else was doing something about it. So whatever it is you’re dreaming of… be the first to act.