A little boy threw something out the window of his school bus. The driver saw him and gave him a note to take home to be signed. This little guy is bright, full of life, and his eyes shine with hope, joy, and irrepressible potential. Why had he done this and what is to be done?
Coming in the door, our intrepid miscreant meets his waiting grandmother. I can imagine his apprehension and hesitation. He already knows he’s in some kind of trouble. Worse yet, Grandma is a retired elementary school teacher. Grasshopper stands nervously in front of Master. She sees instantly that something is amiss. Still, she doesn’t hesitate to reward his homecoming with her biggest smile and warmest hug.
“Can I go out and play with Bobby?”
“What are you holding?”
“A note.”
“Well, then I had better read it.”
The usual suspect reluctantly surrenders the charges against him to the officer of the court and examination begins.
“What did you throw out the window?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Uh huh. What did you throw out the window?”
“A piece of paper.”
“Why?”
“A boy told me too.”
“Why?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What did the bus driver say?”
“I don’t remember.”
Grandma is no fool. “Well then, I need you to sit on this chair and try to remember while I finish cooking supper.”
For our little boy, time passes like he were crossing a turbid stream. He cannot see his feet nor the uneven bottom of the stream bed where he must place them. Surging water constantly threatens his balance. He is alone; with no one to hold his hand. The far bank is in sight, but his immediate future is clearly at risk.
Granny loves him enough to let him suffer for a while. Eventually—no, actually at a thoughtfully chosen interval—Granny turns from her work and, offering a reassuring smile, resumes the interrogation. “What did the bus driver say?”
“He said, ‘That was stupid.’”
Granny’s diaphragm spasms and she barely suppresses the impulse to cackle hysterically. “Well, do you think it was stupid?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You know you shouldn’t litter.” Grandma has made a misstep, but she doesn’t realize it yet. She had him on the defensive but has just appealed to the knowledge and rationality of a prepubescent child.
Seizing the opportunity to object, he asserts himself. “But I wasn’t littering.”
“You threw paper out the window.”
“But, littering is when you throw a can out the window.” A cunning twitch of satisfaction caresses his lips. But now he has made a misstep; forgetting that he is arguing against prosecutor, judge, and jury.
“Littering is when you throw anything on the ground.” Objection denied. There is no further response from the accused; he has no recourse but to throw himself upon the mercy of the court. The verdict is in and It is all over except for the defendant’s statement and the reading of the sentence.
“How do you feel about your littering?”
“It was wrong.”
“Should you do things just because another boy tells you to?”
His pupils dilate momentarily as he considers the potential loophole of being told to do something by a girl. Sanity returns. “No.”
“What should you have said to the boy that told you to do it?”
“I should have said, ‘I’m not stupid.’”
“Do you promise to not litter like that again?” “Like that,” she said. Grandma has deliberately given him some discretionary wiggle room. He understands that he just got a suspended sentence with probation. This will be a test of his character.
“Yes, I promise.” No hesitation. No caveats. Just so. Well done. She signs his note and hands it back. The trial is over and the jury is dismissed.
“Okay, then I guess you have about fifteen minutes to play with Bobby before coming in for supper.” He glances at his wristwatch. Granny knows that he will be back soonish. She bends down to give him a hug and kiss before he dashes off.
Hesitating, he looks back briefly and says “I love you.” They both know that his record has already been expunged.
Copyright 2011, David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0), which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
By David Satterlee
The miserable old man lay in his hospital bed, staring at the clock on the wall. The nurse had just left after waking him from a vivid dream to take a sample of his blood. They were probably checking to see if he still had elevated amylase and lipase in his blood; indicating pancreatitis. “Hell,” he mused, his stomach was still distended; anyone could see that. “Hell,” he mused, “if the disease doesn’t kill me, all this bloodletting will.”
He hated that dream. It haunted him from before he retired; before his wife had died; before he started drinking. Always, he was railing against an illogical way of doing things at the gasoline refinery where he used to work. Sometimes he was complaining to other engineers; occasionally to supervisors, managers, or even the working stiffs whose only concern was to follow orders. Always, nobody seemed to think that his issues were important enough to worry about, to say nothing of making the major changes for which he lobbied. It was the way that things had been done for years. It had become codified into operational software and work habits. Nobody seemed to care—nobody had ever cared except that noble champion of what was right and true that he used to be; this impotent, disillusioned, and very desolate old man that he was now.
In his dream, the engineer, still an earnest, idealistic, and fastidiously through young man, is speaking: “I have reviewed our new plant-wide data acquisition and reporting system. It has several design flaws, related to time, that need to be corrected. The first issue has to do with sample times for analytical laboratory tests. The system is designed to record real-time measurements of continuous process temperature, flow, pressure, and level at intervals down to one second. One of the benefits used to justify our new data acquisition system is the ability to incorporate laboratory test results, such as boiling point or viscosity, into the same displays and reports as the continuously metered measurements. The problem is that our laboratory preprints labels to be placed on sample bottles and these labels only show the time that the sample is scheduled to be picked up at the unit by the lab’s collection truck. It would be nice if we recorded the time that the lab test was completed, but that is a minor issue. The major issue is that the only thing that ties the sample test results to our continuous process measurements is the actual time that the sample was removed from the process stream! And… there is no provision for recording the actual sample time. When we look at the ‘sample time’ on a report, we are actually seeing the scheduled sample pick-up time. It gets worse. Because all samples are due at the same time, unit operators begin drawing these samples early, sometimes hours ahead of pick-up, at arbitrary and variable times according to their individual convenience. I was shocked to discover another distressing issue. For whatever reasons, some units keep reserves of previously-extracted process samples, which they send to the lab instead of new samples. Do you remember the fire that shut down our catalytic hydrocracker last week? The reports showed that two hours after the upset, while all the vessels were still being dumped to flare, several product streams, although having zero flow, were still on spec.
“Secondly, we are corrupting our data every time we shift to or from Daylight Savings Time. The policy is to simply reset the system clock. The result is that every spring, the units appear to disappear for an hour, before reappearing out of nowhere, and every fall, every instruments’ measurements for one hour are intermixed with their history for the previous hour. Both events make hourly and daily averages inaccurate. We are responsible to OSHA and the EPA to maintain accurate records that can be used to reconstruct and analyze exception events. Especially in the fall, we are systematically making that impossible. Unfortunately, the only solution I can think of is to operate refinery processes on Standard Time even when everything switches to Daylight Savings.” And so it went, in one version or another, to one person or another; the argument sound, the effort futile.
The nurse had interrupted that dream. He would have been grateful for that interruption, but for the irony, as we shall see. It had happened in this way: “Time for a blood draw Mr. Dawson.” Glancing at the wall clock, he challenged her, “It’s only 5:06 in the morning. I thought Doctor Wallent had charted it for 7:00 o’clock.” Nurse Betty looked annoyed. “It’s okay, it won’t make any difference. I’ve got a lot to do before going off-shift so I’m getting some of my work done early. And besides, I’ve actually got four patients with blood draws scheduled for seven o’clock; I can’t do all of them at the same time, can I?” This seemed to settle the issue.
Being a well-trained professional phlebotomist, Nurse Betty did an efficient and commendable job of extracting her sample from Mr. Dawson’s right-side median cubital vein on her first try, and with a minimum of discomfort to the patient. Nurse Betty put a pre-printed label on the sample tube and started packing to leave. Mr. Dawson scowled with annoyance. “Aren’t you going to write down the actual time that you took my blood sample?”
Nurse Betty scowled with annoyance. “It’s preprinted. They don’t give me a place to enter that information. Like I said, it’s not a problem; don’t worry about it.” She didn’t realize that Mr. Dawson had been worrying about precisely this for several decades. Nurse Betty had the grace to turn down the lights when she left at 5:13.
Mr. Dawson, realized that the universe had just shown him, as clearly as two billboards in a row with bright flashing lights, that now was the time to finally do something definitive about his frustration. He poured himself a glass of tepid water. He fastidiously wiped up the ring of moisture left by a little remaining condensation on the outside of his plastic pitcher. Fishing in the drawer of his bedside table, he removed all the tablets of narcotic painkiller that he had been palming. He took them methodically; each swallowed with a sip of water. He finished at 5:18, coded at 5:56, and was pronounced dead at about 6 o’clock or somewhere thereabouts. Mr. Dawson’s corpse was logged into the basement morgue at 6:42. Nobody ever noticed or cared that a laboratory report showed that his blood, supposedly drawn 18 minutes later at 7:00 am, contained elevated enzyme levels.
Writing context:
The author’s actual recurring dream. It’s Monday, December 20, 2010. I woke up at 5:06 am with the same damn dream and couldn’t go back to sleep. Here is the crux of the matter: it was a real issue. And, I still can’t do anything about it but whine to another audience.
Copyright 2010 David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
The Two Heroes of Thompsonville
by David Satterlee
Thompsonville was nowhere. It was a town of modest size and not completely isolated, but mostly self-sufficient with its own traditions and community standards. The railroads had passed it by during the great expansion. The express highways had passed it by as well. It was too hilly for a canal – it was too flat for a reservoir. No native son ever grew up to be a governor or general. No one ever started a museum of tiny carved furniture or old farm implements. It was just a nice out-of-the-way place to live. As a matter of fact, it was a nice place to grow old and die if you didn’t wander off in search of something-or-other first.
Labith didn’t just wander off. He hit the road with a vengeance. He had loved his childhood sweetheart, Roatrine for as long as he could remember. They had played together as babies, studied together in school and, in the course of time, come to know each other very, very well. How could Roatrine refuse to marry him now? Why would she invent such a trivial excuse to cut off their friendship? Her parents, Robance and Rosatrine, weren’t the problem; they had always liked him and had given their enthusiastic approval when Labith had asked to formally court their daughter.
Labith was inconsolable. He wandered the hills and found no comfort. He immersed himself in the labor of clearing a new field and found no distraction. Roatrine possessed his heart and haunted his mind. Her ready smile and quick wit filled his thoughts while her silken skin and flowing hair filled his dreams. His mother, Salabith, advised him to be patient and he was. His father, Robance, eventually encouraged him to renew his affections with gifts and sweet words and he did. But, nothing he could think of could change his true love’s mind. “Do you love me?” “Yes.” “Will you marry me?” “I’m sorry, No!”
Some people would have eventually given up and resigned themselves to their fate. But for Labith, there was nothing else to do but keep on seeking. He couldn’t stand the pain of always seeing his beloved around town each day. He couldn’t not always watch for her either. Who else walked with such grace and poise? Who else shared his joys and values? Only Roatrine. And so, Labith, filled with the urgency of intolerable desperation, left. He left his family and his friends and his community. He left their traditions and … well, he left the life he knew behind.
It is truly a big world and Labith, stunned to the core of his soul, traveled. He met people. He read books. He questioned authority. Labith pondered the nature of reality and law and truth. Assailed by ideas and forces that were new to him he found himself, in many ways, even more desperate and alienated than before he left. But, being a man of courage and character, he transcended his previous limits and views. His transformation brought freedom of thought and action. He now knew what he had to do.
People in Thompsonville welcomed Labith back, but watched him with unabashed curiosity. Naturally, he sought out his beloved Roatrine straight away. They walked down by the water path and sat under their favorite tree and they talked. Labith told her where he had gone and what he had learned. He told her how much he loved her and that he still wanted to raise a family with her. Labith told her that if they had a girl, it wouldn’t have to be named Latrine but that they could call her Becky or Marge or something else. “Oh!” said Roatrine, “What a good idea! This changes everything!”
I hadn’t been writing for a while following a move to our dream home in the woods. It was time to get into harness. It was exercise time. I sat down with no agenda and no plot; just the intent to write a short story. My fingers typed “Thompsonville.” Okay, that’s a start. I started describing the town. Then a character jumped in and so did his angst. In the middle of it all, I remembered recently talking to a customer service representative on the telephone. Her name was Latrina. I had pointed it out to my wife: “What parents would name their daughter “Latrina?” We were aware that it has become popular to name children using parts of their parent’s names. Now, what if it were a fixed, immutable, unchallenged tradition in this town?
You DID notice that the names were a conjugation of the first part of the father’s name and the last part of the mother’s name. Curiously, the name of the town is built using a different set of rules.
I have deliberately used pairs of thoughts and pairs of adjectives in the structure of this story. It was intended to be a reflection of how all the names were composed of two parts.
Copyright 2009, 2010 David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
by David Satterlee
[Inspired by a story told to my sister, Joyce Mock, by my father, Bill Satterlee. (Just to keep family history clear, I "invented" the ending part.)]
“Papaw, will you tell me a story?”
“Sure, sweetie. How about the one where I wrestled alligators, or how about the story of the troll and the princess?”
“No, Papaw; you know the one I like.”
“As you wish, dear. When I was a younger man, I worked on a railroad crew and my job was to repair railroad bridges. It was very hard work and we didn’t have all the large machines that they use these days. But, I was tall and strong, it was good honest work, and it paid pretty good so everything was just fine. Every time a train came by, we had to be sure that the bridge was strong enough to hold it. And, we all had to get out of the way, so we would stand beside the track as the train slowed down and went by.
“Back then, there was a big war going on and soldiers often traveled on passenger trains. There was a strict rule that soldiers weren’t allowed to get off the train until they reached their destination. This was all before there were cell phones or computers. So, if a soldier wanted to send a message to his family or his girlfriend, he would have to write a letter and mail it. Well, soldiers on long train trips had lots of time to write letters, but they could not get off to mail their letters. Whatever were they to do?”
“Oh dear, whatever DID they do?”
“Because the trains slowed way down for the bridge construction, soldiers would lean out the windows, throw letters to us, and ask us to please mail them. Sometimes the letters had stamps on them and sometimes they didn’t. But, that didn’t matter much to me. Whenever I got to the next town, I would just buy a few stamps and then put the letters in a mailbox. I always thought about how much his friends and loved ones would want to get a letter from that soldier while he was away from home.
“Sometimes, a soldier would throw me a letter that wasn’t finished. Sometimes the envelope wasn’t even sealed. Maybe he was still writing it when he realized that this might be his last chance in a long time to send his letter out. When a letter wasn’t complete, I would sometimes add a few lines to, you know, finish it off right.
“And then, one day, I was finishing off a letter to someone who sounded like she was very sweet and very pretty. I looked at the address and discovered, to my surprise, that she lived in the very next town that we were coming too. Why buy a stamp when I could deliver it myself? I worked especially hard to do my best job of finishing it.
“The next day, I found her address and I knocked at her door. She was very sweet, and very pretty too. She took the letter from my hand and read it right while I stood there. I guess I must have finished it off okay, because that is how I met your Mamaw.”
[The title had several iterations. It started out as “The Troll and the Princess” as an allusion to the amount of time that the storyteller spent under bridges before finding his princess. In the end, I settled on “A Man of Letters” as a tribute to a wonderful father who never went past 8th grade, but spent the prime of his life at hard work to provide for the family he loved.]
Copyright 2010, David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
by David Satterlee
Fergus and his wife Dorothy are middle-aged. Actually, they are just past middle-aged in that wonderland of freedom and possibility that exists while there is still ambition and the potential for growth but, at the same time, incipient mortality is a boil on the ass that prevents one from sitting idle. Dorothy is retiring early as a social worker and Fergus is disabled. Hard lives are threatening to get harder, but they have plans to do creative work together.
Fergus wakes with a mild surge of adrenaline, which, even when mild, is disturbing. Suddenly awake, he mentally reconnects with his ears, takes an inventory of the little noises around him, scans the dimly lit ceiling for a few moments and finally, beginning to relax, he glances at the clock. It is 3:38 am and he needs to pee. Raising his feet to a near fetal position to avoid disturbing the cat curled head-to-ass in a perfect yin/yang circle at his shins, he slides gently out of the bed. He is also especially careful to not disturb his gently snoring wife who is snuggled up to his rump. Everything is going well. He swings to the side and slides deftly to his feet with practiced precision, stands, checks his balance with the knuckles of his left hand, which deliberately brush the wall for orientation and stability. So far, so good.
Treading gently past the antique Chinese secretary’s desk, its close-hung doors squeak an alarm nonetheless. Busted. Dorothy jerks suddenly, sending the cat leaping into the void beyond the bed, raises up on her elbow, and mumbles with urgent concern, “Is everything okay?” “Yes,” Fergus assures her, “I just need to go to the bathroom.” “So do I,” she replies, “but you go first.”
Dorothy is a treasure. Fergus would do anything for her, even going first without posturing to be gallant and insisting that she precede him. Flooded with affection, he sits back down on the mattress edge and caresses her newly-emerged foot. He starts the game: “Have I told you yet today that I love you?” She responds in character and replies with a pout:”No, not yet.” The small episode concludes with the obligatory speech: “Darling, you are the light of my life, my joy, and everything that is precious to me. I cherish you beyond reason and would slay the fiercest beast to set a kindly path before your feet. I rejoice in the labors of our love: the work that we have shared, the children that we have raised, the friends we have comforted, and the future we will face step by step and hand in hand. I love you.” As always, the affirmation is sealed with a gentle kiss to her cheek.
“I was having a dream, Fergus explains.” He should know better; she will ask for details. Dorothy asks for details. “I had finally found some work I could do and a place that would have me. A University research department hired me to keep things up around one of their labs. First, they discovered that I not only knew my way around computers, but could make them roll over and tell jokes. Then, I revealed that I had experience maintaining analytical systems like their chromatographs and dielectrophoretic separators. After just a few days there, the director decided to redirect research into the properties of materials at ultra-cold temperatures. When he found out that I already knew how to operate high vacuum systems and handle the liquid nitrogen needed by mass spectrophotometers, he asked me to also be responsible for commissioning and overseeing the proper care of the new equipment. It was like going to heaven; I got three promotions in two weeks.” Dorothy smiles with patient tolerance and reminds him, “I love you too, but you’d better get to it soon or I’m going to wet the bed.” His response is certain and reassuring: “As you wish, my bride.” Centering his breath and remembering to live in mindful awareness, he gets up and leaves the still-darkened room to go do his business.
Flipping the wall switch by the bathroom door, Fergus is momentarily blinded and feels a disorienting wave of vertigo. His knuckles seek the reassurance of the door frame, while he squints and feels as if flowing into infinite brightness. A diffuse figure before him smiles gently in greeting, urges him to be unafraid and at peace, and pointedly inquires about what he has learned and how he has loved in life.
Copyright 2009, David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
by David Satterlee
I always love when Grandma comes
to visit with us here.
It’s like a special holiday
to have my Grandma near.
I like it when she reads to me
while sitting on her lap.
I like it when she sings a song
to me before my nap.
And so one day I told my Mom
it didn’t seem too fair
that Grandma only came to us
but we’d not visit there.
“Why can’t we go to Grandma’s house?
I really want to know.
I like when she comes over here
because I love her so.”
=====================
My Mama looked real funny and
she sat me on a chair.
I wondered what was wrong that she
had made me sit right there.
She frowned again and looked at me
while thinking what to say.
I’m really glad she smiled at last
and talked to me that day.
“I know you love your Grandma and
I know she loves you too.
She loves to come and see us and
she loves to visit you.
“But Grandma’s place is different than
our house where children play.
She has a lot of precious things
that you might hurt some day.
======================
“You’ll break her chickens made of glass
and all her precious things.
You’ll tear the pages in her books
and try on all her rings.
“You’ll run around your Grandma’s house
and jump on all her chairs.
You’ll slide on all her little rugs
and bump down all her stairs.
“You’ll open all her closets up
and try on all her clothes.
You’ll use her pretty table cloth
to wipe your drippy nose.
“You’ll run around pretending that
you’re flying in the air.
You’ll make her yellow tabby cat
go hide beneath the chair.”
======================
It made me sad to think about
the things that mother said.
I almost felt like crying as
I laid there in my bed.
I really wouldn’t want to break
my Grandma’s precious stuff.
I only want to visit her
and wouldn’t play too rough.
I’d only play with just the things
that Grandma let me touch.
I truly would be quiet there
and not make noise so much.
The rules are sometimes different when
you’re in another place.
If only they would let me go
I wouldn’t run and chase.
======================
So when I woke tomorrow I
would tell my mother that
I promised to be careful and
leave stuff where it was at.
I’d try to be more thoughtful and
I’d walk instead of run.
I’d talk instead of shouting but
I still could have some fun.
I’d ask to see her pictures of
the places she had been.
I’d listen to her stories of
our family way back when.
And so it really happened that
we got into the car
and went to visit Grandma’s house.
It wasn’t very far.
=======================
My Grandma smiled and said that she
was glad that we were there.
She said that she had baked a batch
of cookies we could share.
I mostly looked but didn’t touch
but that was really hard.
So once or twice they told me I
should go play in the yard.
When I came in I had to wipe
my feet upon a mat.
She let me jump from just two steps
and pet the yellow cat.
She told me stories of the time
when Mother had been small;
before the time that I was born
and wasn’t here at all.
======================
Of course she hugged and kissed me and
she told she would care
about how I was growing and
that I was welcome there.
She said that she had noticed that
I didn’t tease the cat
and that I paid attention to
the place where I was at.
“But you,” she said, “mean more to me
than any fancy thing.
I’m grateful for your visit and
you make my old heart sing.
“I want you to remember though
that when the day is through,
of all the things I care about,
my precious thing is you.”
Copyright 2004, David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
by David Satterlee
[Note: Contains regional dialect, immature mature dialog, descriptive violence, and mild profanity.
Dang, when you put it that way, I just want to blush a little bit.]
[For reading theatre with two male voices]
That sure was a fine funeral service.
Yep, a very fine service.
Probably the finest service I’ve been to this year.
Yep.
You just kinda felt his spirit there.
Well, Bobby always was kind of a lurker.
Mark my words: I figure he’d be keepin to his self in that there coffin.
Becky Sue once tol me she’d see him lurking regular out by her wood pile.
Hell, that weren’t Bobby. That were my cousin Roy.
Sure nuff?
Sure as I’m pure, white, and proud. Didn’t Roy ever take you out Sue lookin?
No, he never.
Why not? You queer or sumptin and I don’t know it?
You and me’s been huntin regular since we was little. You know I’m no such thing. Don’t be a fool. Besides, I was too ‘fraid of Becky Sue’s Daddy Zeke.
Now you’re the fool. Ever’body knowed that Becky Sue seen we was lookin—an she was showin—Even Daddy Zeke knowed it. But, he got so tired of runnin boys off he never comed out lessen ole Roy got to barkin.
Why was your Cousin Roy barkin?
No, Cousin don’t bark. Daddy Zeke’s hound ole Roy gets to barkin. Course, Roy always took himself some store bought doggie bone biscuits. Ole Roy would see im commin and sneak away from under the house to have them bones, git his ears scratched, and take a nap.
Well, if Daddy Zeke wern’t gunnin for Bobby, how’d he git hisself all shot up?
I been figurin on it and it comes to me that Bobby’s regular girl Linda done him in.
Now how do you reckon that?
You know Old Man Nations what used to be a lawyer?
Yeah, what of it?
Well Nations don’t get out much anymore so he up and gave a sack of his good lawyer clothes to Donnita down at the thrift store. I heard from Donnita that Daddy Zeke got a trousers that he’s been wearing for go to church for weeks, and that Bobby bought himself one too. Bobby told her he was gonna wear it to go propose to Linda to see iffin she would marry him.
That ain’t no sin.
Yeah, but my Roxanne says that Bobby’s Linda has been all upset hearing Becky Sue talking about him bein up at her house, and Linda saw Bobby’s new trousers and thought Becky Sue musta give him one of Daddy Zeke’s.
I don’t see how she come to that thinking, but Linda’s whole family is nuttier than squirrel turds.
Anyhow, this is what I’m guessin. Whoever shot Bobby got him with both barrels through his window and he took the full load in the front of his new fancy trousers and tore em all to hell.
That’s a damn poor aim. Bobby musta taken some time passin on.
Sure enough. The neighbors say he carried on for neigh on half an hour, holding what wasn’t left of, you know, himself, and screamin somethin fierce, and rolling on the floor.
But, wasn’t he gettin set to go propose to Linda?
Yep, Bobby was all set to propose to Linda that same night, but Linda sure nuf didn’t know that.
Anyway, that’s why I figure Bobby was keepin to hisself in that there coffin, him with no trousers or much of anything else, and why they had to just bury him in his shorts.
(pause)
That sure was a fine service.
Yep, a very fine service.
[End]
Copyright 2010, David Satterlee
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.
