FAST FICTION

The first time I caught you cheating on me I ignored it.

I shouldn't say caught, really. I mean, you left your Inbox open. How could I not look? You should know better than that. Especially since you were cheating. But there it was, with that god-awful subject line: "dreaming of you."

I shouldn't have, but I closed the window. I chose to think that there was probably a perfectly good explanation why someone other than me would send you an email with that particular subject line.

But Thursday was just cruel. I mean, give me some credit. Come up with a better excuse than "My mom asked me to run some errands." Because I had just then dropped off a cake at her place and she didn't mention shit. So when I drove over and parked across the street and called you saying I was on my way, and watched whoever it was running the hell out of the place, I took pictures and followed him home. That's when you stopped hearing from me. And you'll never hear from me again.

Him neither.

But don't worry.

I'll make sure you know he's dead because of your fucking cunt.

*

I wrote the above for a Fast Fiction Friday that Warren Ellis invited unpublished writers to submit to. Only rule was that it be under 200 words (mine's 199). I missed the deadline, but thought I'd put it up here.

It is very angsty, I know. So it sort of reminds me of how I wrote in high school. From my perspective, then, it must be juvenile? Still, it is inspired by this post from Michael Barrish's Oblivio, which broke my heart. I don't really read Oblivio, to be honest. Neva forced me to read the post (not that I regret it). She's been reading him since forever, and his blog was one of the ones that made her want to start her own, and then the landslide started, about two years back.

It's amazing to me that he's able to be as forthcoming and open and honest as he is. It's a very private, personal series of events, but he laid it out there. It speaks to the rapport he has with his readers, I guess. A more cynical person might say that he craves the attention, but again, his story broke my heart, and made me very, very angry. So when I saw the invite, on the same day, I wrote the above.




Remember when we still thought cheating was rare?