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Sitting in front of her old typewriter, chin propped in hand, Jillian gazes into the bottom of her coffee cup. Her mind is a total blank. Why can't she come up with a good story? She'd been sitting here for hours, and the clean, white page seems to be glaring at her. Mocking her.
Frustrated, she gets up and starts to pace. Just as she is about to refill her mug, she hears a sound. Moving toward the window, she can see a shadowy figure dart into the pitch black, just outside her back door. She's neglected to turn the rear porch light on again, as usual. It just drew the attention of too many bugs, in her opinion.
Grabbing her favorite knife from atop her dresser, she makes a point of creating a racket, opening and shutting dresser drawers and finally turning on the radio at full volume. Walking inside the bathroom, she starts the shower, then quickly steps back through the bedroom and makes her way silently to the rear entrance. As quietly as she can, she unlocks the latch.
One breath. Two breaths. THREE! In a fluid motion, she has the back door open and her left arm wrapped around the man's head, and is dragging the blade deeply across his jugular with the right. He never makes a sound, dropping like a sack of potatoes onto the back steps. Jillian picks up his feet and drags him over to the tiny backyard garden that she had just begun to work on earlier in the week. This wasn't what she'd had in mind for planting, but the ground was freshly tilled and easy to dig back up. Grabbing a shovel from the nearby shed, it takes less than an hour for her to dig a hole just large enough for the body. Rolling the man into it, she quickly covers him up and levels out the remaining dirt. Propping the shovel back in the shed, she goes back inside and washes her hands carefully, and before sitting down again, she turns off the shower and the radio.
Back at the typewriter, Jillian sits again. What to write, what to write. She sighs heavily. Why can't she think of something to write?! |
