by Gary Fincke
Discover that the teacher who taught your daughter how to drive, described as elderly, long retired, and the victim, recently, of a stroke, is in the news. Learn that the man who repeatedly reminded her to always use turn signals, not as a courtesy, but to follow the law, is now “a person of interest” in the beating death of his wife. Think about the “unknown reasons” the police chief ascribes to the mystery of motive and decide that he may have hated each moment of his wife’s concern for his condition, how her voice may have begun to reach him with a hospice accent. Believe that you have created a plausible scene even though the police say they are astonished at how frail the teacher is, making every scenario with the teacher as killer difficult for them to trust. Remember that the house is two blocks from where your children lived when they were small, a Halloween stop during your daughter’s years of becoming ghost, witch, and a small, double-masked, two-headed girl knocking on the door near where two crabapple trees blossom this week, their beautiful, temporary pink shading daffodils you admire. Know that you can’t resist forming the title “Landscape with Killer’s House.”
Gary Fincke’s latest flash collection is The History of the Baker’s Dozen (Pelekinesis 2024). He is co-editor of the annual anthology Best Microfiction.
