Red Letter Day by Tim Reed

Today will be a Red Letter day. After writing the title, John smiled grimly and added the following sentence: And that is a deliberate term—red denotes blood and we all know the power of letters, when put into words.

“And what dreadful words will bring on the apocalypse?” He chuckled—a touch madly—and looked at his surroundings, half-expecting a horror to enter at any moment. But he was alone in his shack, hiding in the darkness, back to the kitchen wall.

On his lap lay his diary. The diary—intended to document the past, present and possible future to anyone sane enough to find it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything positive to write—in other words, no lies—so he began with the truth, knowing time was running out on his Red Letter day. An hour or two and the tatters of the world would be fed to the wolves.

“And what awful wolves we have summoned.” John shuddered, cursing being privy to knowledge best left in the distant past. Now that the dim time was returning, coming full circle through the sludge of human achievement, part of him welcomed it—it would be a fitting end to humanity’s ignominious reign.

But first, his mind sought the past.

Throughout the twentieth century, and in the early years of the twenty-first, humans craved war…

John broke off, thinking he heard a noise from the study. Cautiously, he rose, holding his breath, but a peek through the door showed that he was alone. Or was he? *** Read on! ***

Man Murders Wife by Judy Viertel

Man Murders Wife
by Judy Viertel

I’m running. I stop to retie my shoe, and find myself looking at a young woman’s breasts. She’s walking towards me—I don’t mean to stare, I’m not a lesbian, although my short hair and lack of makeup often confuse people. It’s the way her tight shirt pushes her breasts up that makes them difficult to ignore. They’re oddly rounded, like two cereal bowls propped against her chest. As I finish with my shoelace, she wobbles past on spiked heels. Ankle breakers, my grandmother would have called those boots, and her leather skirt is so tight she can only manage tiny, nibbling steps. The two men she’s walking with have to support her as she steps down into the crosswalk. They look ten years older than her. They outweigh her, each of them, by at least a hundred pounds. It’s none of my business. Even so, I start thinking about something I recently read.

A man murdered his wife. She was a fashion model. Did he use a gun, or was it a knife? I can’t remember. He killed her and dumped the body. But first, he cut off all her fingers. He pulled her teeth. Why? No fingerprints, no dental records. There was no way for the police to identify the body. But those detectives, they were smart. They traced the serial numbers in her breast implants. That’s how they caught the husband. ** Read on! **

Handy Man by David Landrum

Handy Man

by David Landrum

“Hey, baby, I’m your handy man.” — From the song, “Handy Man” by Otis Blackwell

I’ve always liked the song “Handy Man.”  I like the original version by Jimmy Jones and the cover by Del Shannon.  My favorite, though, is the recording James Taylor made of it in 1977.  I like Taylor’s version because he sings it in an easy, sweet, gentle voice, and this reflects how I am.  Of course, I like the song most of all because I do the thing the guy in the song says he can do.  I fix broken hearts.  I’ve done it now at least two times.

The first one I fixed belonged to a girl name Linda Seales.  I got to know her when I worked at a McDonalds in Indianapolis.

Linda was not a pretty girl.  She had red hair and blue eyes but her teeth all had spaces between them and she was a little chubby.  She came from a poor home.  As a senior in high school she started working at Mickey-D’s to earn spending money.

Linda didn’t open up much at first, but after a while she started talking about a kid named Tom Hefner, who was giving her a hard time at school.

Hefner came from a wealthy home.  Religious, good-looking, popular, clean and wholesome, he tormented Linda without let-up—and to the great amusement of the other students. Every day he launched some kind of barb at her.  She insulted back, but he had popularity on his side and good looks.  “Suck my nose,” she would say, but her insults had no effect because he, and the other students, knew he rated higher on the social ladder than she.  Linda patiently endured it and confided to me, the Handy Man. ** Read on! **

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