Margaret stands at the window, parting
the curtain with one hand. “You missed quite a storm, George,”
she says. George doesn't respond, of course, having been dead for
eight months. But after fifty-two years, she has become accustomed to
speaking with George. And so she prattles on, outlining the silences
of her day with meaningless words, filling in the rest with
television.
Three people trudge down the sidewalk,
heads bent against the persistent wind. One clutches the handle of a
Radio Flyer wagon. “You won't get around that tree,” Margaret
murmurs. They glance at the window. Margaret pulls away. Ever since
George died, she's been afraid. Now she is terrified: The power has
been out for nine days. The dog has been eating her frozen dinners.
The water is gone.
The trio heads up her front walk.
Somebody rings the bell.
The dog barks and skitters over.
“What do you think, George?” she
asks the silence. “Should I answer?”
George remains reticent, although were
he alive, he would insist upon opening the door: George was a
gentleman.
She goes to the door and opens it a
crack. A man smiles at her. “We're checking on the residents in
your area, ma'am.”
She widens the door. She's happy to see
good old-fashioned virtue returning to America.
“Do you need anything?”
Batteries. Water. A flashlight. “I
think I'm fine.”
“You sure?” He gestures to the
wagon. “We've got everything from toilet paper to dog food.”
She smiles. “Well, a tin or two of
dog food might be nice.” She pats the dog's head. He thumps his
tail.
“Coming right up.” The man sloshes
to the wagon and grabs three cans before returning. “Thirty
dollars.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You don't want that pup to starve.”
She shuts the door; throws the
deadbolt.
“Sorry, George,” she says. “That
was unkind. But that man was a whore.”
George may have been a gentleman.
Margaret never said she was a lady.
Labels: fiction Trifecta Writing Challenge