Death

In a Perfect World

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

By Edele Winnie

“Are you Mrs. Dununzio?” The doctor asked. At lease she assumed he was a doctor. He was wearing scrubs, had a pulled down mouth mask around his throat and a smear of blood that was just disappearing from his white coated chest.

Carol Dununzio nodded. “How is she?”

The doctor shook his head sadly.

“She’s not dead then?” Carol had to be certain.

“No.” The doctor said, frowning. “She lived. She’s going to be fine. I’m sorry.”

Carol Dununzio tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Her daughter still lived. Jessica, aged eleven, had survived. What was she going to do now?

A moment later another doctor wheeled Jessica out in a wheelchair. The young girl looked dazed, and the brown hair on the side of her head was matted with dried blood. The doctor tipped the chair and Jessica slid out and landed at her mother’s feet.

The doctors walked away, commenting on how awful the sunny weather currently was.

Carol grabbed Jessica by the arms and hauled her to her feet. The girl wobbled, but her legs held and so Mrs. Dununzio tugged her towards the emergency room doors.

The family car was easy to spot, for it was the least damaged in the lot. It was a fiery red and only the passenger side had been crashed in. The car in the spot next to it had been in so many accidents that it was now a patchwork of different colours as replacement parts had been added. One door was light blue, the next black, the roof was orange and there were other colours and some rust too. The car on the other side had been in a head on and all that remained of the windshield was jagged glass.

Mrs. Dununzio pushed Jessica into the back seat where the dead cocker spaniel was.   They’d found it by the side of the road about a week ago. It was long dead though and there were barely any insects in it anymore. Jessica was still bleeding lightly from her head wound. She lay down on the ripped seats in the back and wrapped her arms around the dead dog. Continue reading →

Marked for Death

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

By Edele Winne

Coco was a small yappy black and white Shi-tzu dog with a talent for sniffing out those about to die. She had proven it eight times on dead end Mercy Street where mostly seniors lived, by camping out on the front porches of those about to expire.

As you can imagine the Mercy street residents were uncomfortable around little Coco.  Coco’s mistress, 89 year old Annabelle Coumbs, pshawed the whole business and refused to discuss it.  But everyone else did.  As the older residents passed away with Coco standing guard new younger people moved into the freshly vacant houses.  Mercy Street became an interesting mix of older and newer, seasoned and fresh, those about to die and those with long lives still ahead.

Muriel Robert was thirty one.  Because she was thirty one, she did not think about her health.  She considered herself unremarkable: short and thin with bobbed mousey brown hair.  She had smoked for six years in her teens but that was years ago.  At first she was pleased to find the charming Coco camped out on her porch, and then perturbed as she remembered the death vigil stories.  She petted Coco, who was most appreciative, and then went back into the house determined to ignore the death watch.

Maybe the dog just stopped here for a rest?  Maybe it was chasing a squirrel?  Muriel chewed at her nails.  It’s nonsense.  Coincidence.  Coco wanders everywhere and people only notice when someone passes away.  Besides, I’m thirty one!

            Muriel gave the dog a worried look and a pat on the head as she left for her evening shift at the hospital.  As a nurse she was no stranger to people dying, she’d hardened herself to it.   But now everything was different- she was looking at the possibility of her own death.  Was it going to be a car accident?  A sudden heart attack?  A crazed shooter at the hospitable or maybe even an earthquake?  She was too busy thinking such things and didn’t stop at the red light.  A dark blue pickup smashed into her passenger side and started her car spinning up onto the sidewalk. Continue reading →

Trick or Treat

/ Ben Van Dongen / Leave a comment

By Edele Winnie

“You’re going to have contact.” Marge swirled her pale hands over the crystal ball one more time. “Tomorrow.” She looked up at Loretta. “Halloween.”

Loretta’s legs began to quiver and she swallowed hard. “Thank you Marge.”

Marge smiled. She was not some artful gypsy but rather the stretch and strength exercise class instructor for the senior’s home where they both lived.

I’m going to have contact. Lortetta could not stop thinking about it at dinner that night, about her beloved husband Leroy, dead twenty-two years now. How she’d missed him. She’d been in a strange state of late- feeling isolated and alone, even though she’d lived in the senior’s home for the past seven years. She was no longer connecting with the others, staying in her room more, listening to sad music and remembering. The nurses had decided it was depression and added a little something to her daily barrel of drugs but it hadn’t changed anything. So Marge and the cane gang had decided to take matters into their own hands and cheer Loretta up. Continue reading →

Snip, Snip  

/ Ben Van Dongen / 1 Comment

By Edele Winnie

“These are good quality snippers.” Mark commented. He was a tool guy, so he knew what he was talking about.

They were pruners, the long handled kind, well used, probably fifty years old.

“They don’t make things with this kind of quality anymore.” Mark continued, handing them back to Sheila, his pretty, petite brunette wife.

She accepted them carefully. The pruner blades were shiny and extremely sharp. Someone had taken very good care of them over the years.   Even though her hands were small the pruners seemed to fit her perfectly.

Mark and Sheila had liked the house the first time they saw it. It was small, but they were not planning children. The house was in good repair and the surrounding garden was impressive. It was not fancy but rather well maintained and lovingly cared for. Sheila imagined that the pruner had been used to trim the lilacs and dogwoods. Continue reading →

Love Never Dies

/ Ben Van Dongen / 1 Comment

By Edele Winnie

The thunder woke him. House shaking, teeth jarring thunder- sounding like an angry god right over top of their little house. He rolled over to see if Deanna had been woken as well but she wasn’t there.

He waited but she didn’t return. She’d always been a bit spacey- it was one of the things he liked about her. She wasn’t intellectual- she was emotional. She’d been called ‘slow” but she wasn’t- she just felt things first, before she thought about them.

She wasn’t in the bathroom, or the living room, or the kitchen. Had she gone outside? She liked storms and would often sit on the porch – tasting them, she called it- feeling the thunder, seeing the bright lightening flashes, inhaling the wind. Continue reading →

Dark Waters – Part 1

/ Alanna / 4 Comments

The war within the sea had been going on for so long that the origin in which it began had faded into myth within the opposing kingdoms.  Each kingdom believed they were fighting for a just cause, though each had suffered untold loss throughout the centuries.  The last great battle named Thalassa the victor, having fewer casualties than Pelagia.  The next would likely see Pelagia overcome Thalassa, as they redoubled their efforts.  It had continued like this for many years, neither side able to fully conquer the other – and neither kingdom making any effort towards the first steps of peace. Continue reading →

Ten Thousand Dales (Part 2)

/ Christian Laforet / 4 Comments

The rain beat against the front windows in a steady cadence. The noise was not enough however to override the beep of the scanner at checkout nine. Adrienne passed one item after another across the scanner. She had the extreme misfortune of being the only cashier currently working at that time. Putting on a smile which she hoped did not look as fake as it was, she asked the customer standing before her, “Do you need any bags?”

————————————

Down aisle one, Danny stood in front of a green cart piled high with a dozen cases of instant mashed potatoes. He made a sour face when he realized the shelf was already filled to capacity with the sodium loaded side-dish.

“Why did we get this?” Danny asked himself. Continue reading →