Tag: death

Helen

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories8 Comments

“There’s absolutely nothing good that can go on after midnight, there’s no movies, no restaurants, no school dances. Only one thing happens and you don’t want any part of it if you want a normal life.”

If anyone knows about not having a normal life, it sure as hell is going to be me. My piece of shit father was a man of few words and never the right ones. I never once in my life heard an “I love you”, gotten a hug or even a smile from the rotten bastard. He preferred to let his belt do his talking for him.

The woman that I called mother just hid away in the bedroom, sniveling like a child herself, with never a word or lifting a hand to try to stop him. One day, in a drug induced moment of courage, she pointed the sleek, cold steel of my dad’s .45 at the wrinkle just above her nose and pulled the trigger. As far as I was concerned, it was just another coward’s move from a weak minded piece of shit. The powder and lead might have driven away her pain but a lot of good it did for me.

So I fled into the night and let the darkness seduce me. Where I could feel the coolness of the shadows against my naked skin dance with the heat from whoever was willing to pay for my passion.

My dear daughter Leanna, you were born on my seventeenth birthday. That day, I vowed to make a better life for you, my precious baby girl. I was going to give you all the things I had never gotten from life; a home, love, compassion, support and honesty.

I just forgot that all those things came with a price. That all the money in the world couldn’t give you those things, only time shared with each other can do that.

Now, all I can do is bring flowers to your grave.

“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you while you were being seduced by the night.”

Only One Chance

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories8 Comments

Death is a natural occurrence, like drying leaves dropping from trees in the waning days of autumn. We don’t mourn their absence but we do remember them for their brilliant colors. At times during the despair of our winter when the cold turns our hearts icy and the landscape bleaches into shapeless shadows, we may think of them. But for every winter there comes a spring and with the warming of our souls, the memories of them step aside and each blossom of the new beginning smells the sweeter for it. Celebrate the time you have with those you love.

Damn War

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories4 Comments

Damn war

It was February 23rd, 1967 when the men in their pressed uniforms with shiny metals and polished shoes knocked on his front door.

That’s was when his mother locked herself into her room and cried until she finally gave in and kissed the .22 caliber God; leaving him to fend for himself against foster parents that made him join in their games.

Before they fed him the little round pills that filled him with numbness. Before they showed him how to inject false hope into his veins.

Hopefully, February 23rd can’t find its way through the six feet of dirt.

My First Funeral

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short StoriesLeave a comment

 

I wondered why people felt the need to express their opinions about his appearance. They strolled by the casket like they were out shopping the fresh produce isle at the market. I watched as a few gathered the bravado to touch a hand; some patted his chest and one old women, I had no idea who, even place a kiss on his forehead.

 “Doesn’t he look nice?” “He looks so peaceful.” “He looks so natural.” “Well, at least he’s in a better place.”

When my turn to peek over the side came, my excitement faded.

Uncle Elmer just looked dead.

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.