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Please enjoy another Short Story Saturday submission from Steve Rouse.
We left pretty much together, a few wanting to continue their debate in the bar. Me, I just wanted to get home. It’d been a long day at work. As rejuvenating as our monthly writers’ dinner meetings were, all I wanted right now was to relax at home with my wife, dogs, and then my favorite side of the mattress.
I said my good-byes and headed for the car. I stopped short next to the door with my key ready. A plastic bag holding an envelope was under my wiper blade. I took it and sat in the car to see who was selling what.
Thirty seconds later, I still sat, dumbstruck, key still in hand.
It took a few minutes, but I regained my composure and drove home the long way, not on the “I”. The next morning, the local news covered the grim details of a multi-car pile up on the Interstate. Three people died.
I took out the letter and reread it several times, pausing to use about half a box of Kleenex. I then handed it to my questioning wife. She read:
September 15, 2018
Dear Grandpa,
Today will be my birthday in two years. I never got to meet you, but I know all about you, ‘cause Mom talks about you all the time, especially on our shared day. I’ve grown up wondering what it would’ve been like to get one of your famous hugs or sit on your lap and hear some of your stories. The one story I’ll never forget is how you died tonight in a car crash coming home from your writers’ dinner. Please stay off the expressway tonight. I really want to meet you!
Loving your Memory,
Becky
About the Author
I’ve always loved words. However, crafting them into a viable story that carries the full weight of emotion, action, or scene description to the reader that resided in my brain at the time of its writing is another thing altogether. I whittled away at this craft while teaching middle schoolers to love words and stories, too.
Now that I’m retired from teaching, my wife and I enjoy quiet times at home in Northwestern Wisconsin. She with her recipes, me with my stories. The love of kids, grandkids, pets and an occasional zoo trip fills the void.
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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Aw, what a sweet story, and a wee bit eerie!