This might be my only post for months. You're welcome.

Hopefully not, but... we saw what happened last time.

I'm not going to make any commentary about life today, but I will say this.  In the summertime, I love crappy reading.  Not that reading is crappy (I'm a reading teacher, it's not in my to say that), but I want the things that I read to be good and crappy.  In other words, no tragic nihilistic explorations of existence, like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, for me. *Ask my twin sister about that.*  Give me fantasy series and adventure books--even children's books.  For the record, I maintain that Harry Potter is not crappy reading.

Nevertheless, the problem with reading literature that's, shall we say, bottom shelf, is that hinders my own literary development.  So, in addition to reading crappy books this summer, I've taken to reading the next best thing: flash fiction.

This has re-inspired my writing efforts, the first fruits of which are below.  I don't have a title for this yet, but I hope you enjoy.

                

                I don’t get the news until I read the local obituaries.  It’s something I do, see: one of those neurotic tendencies that keep me up at night, well after a man who heads to work at six each day should’ve gone to bed.  A shave and a hot shower.  A glass of warm milk and honey to wash away the stresses of the day.  A plate of toast on my tiny kitchen table, while I pet my Cat, Chloe.  And yes: reading the obituaries.  I have lots of odd little tricks like that, “to keep the ulcers away,” Steve and I joke.  Neuroses are part of the territory when you’re trying to make partner at a top five firm in Philadelphia before the age of forty.

                But tonight when I open the paper, my spoon drops into my cup.  The whole glass tumbles, nearly spilling on my lap as I read the words, but I hardly notice the mess.  “Corporal Stephen Werwick,” the page reads dully, “October 9, 1974 – April 27, 2011.”  There’s a picture there, too.  That’s Steve.  My Steve.  I look around the apartment, knowing I won’t find him there.  Steve deployed nearly a month ago. I examine the photograph again.  

He’s barely recognizable in this picture: years younger, and smiling up at me in those ridiculous rounded glasses he’d worn when we first met, and those terrifying snakeskin shoes his mother sent him when he graduated college.  I’d never let him hear the end of those shoes.  I think taking this picture was the only time he ever wore them.  I hope it was anyway.

Glancing down at the milk pooling around my slippers, I wonder if I’m reading the wrong section of the Times Herald.  I peer closer.  “Cpl. Stephen Werwick, Pennsylvania born officer in the United States Army, killed in the line of duty…”  A chill drops through me.  Understanding creeps upon me, though I try to force it back.  I have to ask Steve where they got this picture... 

Without permission from my brain, my eyes read on.  I’m having an out of body experience.  A narrator in my head reads to me about a stranger.  “Stephen Werwick was born to John and Gracie Werwick of Woxall, Pa.… top of his class … attended Bucknell … enrolled in ROTC… pursued a military career… master’s in psychology…”
                There’s a ripping in my stomach; like an anchor tearing it apart.  That’s Steve, alright.

“Stephen served his country proudly for two tours of duty in Iraq.  This was to be his final assignment, in Afghanistan.  His community will remember him as a hero who gave up everything in the name of freedom. 

He is survived by his mother, father, and younger sister, Sophie.” 

That’s it.  No more.  No condolences.  No offers of assistance to ease this hard time.  The paper lies there, mocking me: tying Steve’s life off with a neat bow like a box I’ve never opened, instead of the world I’ve lived in for the past five years.

I shake my head, trying to clear my inexplicably blurred vision. 

Why do you call him Stephen?  I silently demand of the paper. 

Steve would run naked through the streets before having anyone call him by his full name.  “Survived by his mother, father, and sister.”  I scoff.  Steve’s parents hadn’t spoken to him once in all the years I’ve known him.  “His community will remember him as a hero…”  The only words I’d ever heard about his hometown were that he would never again set foot in “that Godforsaken hell-hole.”  

I feel like I’m in a cave.  My mind answers my own unspoken question.  The Army can’t notify you if they don’t know you exist.

There’s a hollow in my stomach, and I’m dizzy, but I can’t move.  I have to call Steve and ask who this article is really about.  It’s not about him.  Jerking up to get my phone, I dial his number but get a busy-tone.  Angrily, I seize the paper again.  This doesn’t even mention Chloe! my mind screams, personally offended by the omission.  Sophie called once from college last year; I know Steve told her about the cat!

There’s oppressive silence in the apartment, broken only by the ticking clock and ghosts of a familiar voice in my mind.

I can still hear Steve laughing on the phone with me just four days ago.  He’s describing the lovely vacation package we can arrange if we decide to take a scenic vacation where he is, deep in the Kush Mountains.  Abruptly, his voice gets tender.  “I’ll be home soon,” he promises.  Soon, he will start a new career as a counselor in the nearby VA hospital.  When I make partner, we will take a real trip: to China to study Mandarin; reading history in the shadows of the Great Wall.  We will try again to adopt a child—being partner at my firm will certainly confer me more sway with the local courts than I’d had before.  We laugh at this unlikely dream, but indulge it anyway.  Steve always has a way of making me believe we can overcome impossible odds together.  I’ll never understand how he does… I choke on the rock in my throat… did that.

I feel cold. The emptiness of my kitchen presses down on me and this damned paper provokes me, depriving me of feeling like a mountain of ice chilling the room.  Even the milk at my feet feels like runoff from a freezing rain.  

Numbly, I get up to find a towel.  The paper taunts me.  “A hero who gave up everything in the name of freedom.” 

Soaking up the milk, I wonder how he died.  I hope his last breaths indeed bought someone else that abstract ‘freedom’ Americans love.  Myself,  I can only think about the chains Steve lived in.  Wringing the towel out in the sink, I remind myself that I can’t collapse at his funeral.  His buddies might raise their eyebrows.