For those of you who may be wondering if I ever actually complete a story, I’ve included one that I wrote back in August that I’ve recently pulled out of the dust. Please remember that this story is not biographical in nature, and that I’ve never killed my wife (Love you, honey!). I’ve never killed anyone else either, for that matter.

This is one of those stories that just comes out. I wrote it in one day, in one sitting, then went back a few weeks later and corrected (mostofthe) grammar and misspellings. I had just read Stephen King’s short story The Man Who Loved Flowers a month or two before. I thought the story was interesting, and that the premise was great, and I cam up with the idea to turn the story backwards and have a woman kill her boyfriend in a moment of heated passion. As you’ll see, that didn’t happen.

What did happen is that a story came out that I think is entertaining and certainly creepy. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Voila!

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“Aw, dammit, I loved that girl!” Harry Mitchell puts his head down on the bar and blubbers like a kid. Weak sobs escape the fold of his arm and cause his body to hiccup on the wooden bar stool. He thinks of the way she used to look at him when they first became involved, with those deep blue eyes so dark they were almost violet.

“What the helldya mean ‘loved’, Harry?” says Reggie, curiosity peaking out from behind the drunken stupor that he visits like an old friend, maybe a lover. “Last night, you were in here, same as today, but when you said you love her, you love her. Love like right now, not some time ago.”

Harry pulls his head up off the bartop. Tears have carved trails down his cheeks and his eyes were red, puffy. He looks around, and sees the glow of the barback mirror shimmering like a halo over some disenchanted angel. He stops crying and the smoke begins to sting his eyes. Bad-tempered and meddlesome stares pierce the back of his skull like a knife sunk to the hilt. Some of Callahan’s other patrons have begun to watch Harry, the way one would watch ants devouring a bumblebee. He’s making quite a scene.

“I mean just that, Reggie. I loved her. Loved. As in past tense. Don’t you know how to speak the goddammed English language?” (more…)