A short short about storm damage and how it can change lives.
Instant Karma by Storm Debris
That Rita is a bitch. She’s coming. They’re telling all Conchs to leave or we’ll be underwater. They don’t know us … nobody tells us what to do. Besides I can’t leave. If I go anywhere, he’ll find me. My ex has been stalking around for days. The last time I saw him he punched me in the face, said he’d kill me. I’m staying.
The wind is increasing. It’s kind of scary. I’ve sat through some storms in my day, but this seems worse. The water’s coming up. If I leave now, I’ll have to wade through my yard. Maybe I’ll go up to the Brass Monkey. That place never closes. It’s on the highest part of Marathon Key. I need to hear a human voice. The wind keeps saying that I’m going to die tonight.
I didn’t think it would be this bad. Even the Monkey is closed. There’s nobody around. The wind keeps talking to me. I don’t think I can get back to my house. I’m going to try the back door. I really need to see another person. It’s too scary.
My heart’s beating like a drum, but the handle turns. I pull it open, but the wind pushes me backward. I fall. Even so, I feel relief because a person’s hand dangles in front of my face, pulling me up. A sense of warmth fills my body. Then I hear his voice.
“Bitch, you would be headed to the bar like the whore you are.”
I try to pull away, but his grip is steely. I glance up. His eyes are wilder than I’ve ever seen them. They burn with primitive power and hatred for me and all women. He’s much scarier than the storm. I wish I’d stayed in my trailer. It would’ve been safer.
Then he says something even scarier.
“I’ve kind of missed your fat ass.”
He pushes me up against the building. The wind rushes around us. The rain drives into our bodies. I can feel the uneven paint on the building’s side as it rubs against my face. He rips off my panties and pushes me even harder. I’m ashamed because even though his wrath frightens me more than Rita, I react to the feeling of another human being’s warmth. It blocks out the cry of the wind for a second.
He pulls away and whispers in my ear, “That’s all you’ve ever been good for … and that’s goodbye for you.”
He puts his hands around my throat and starts to squeeze. I relax into the darkness. Then his hands inexplicably loosen and I pull away as warm drops splatter my face. A stiletto heel has flown out of nowhere and stabbed his eye. The strong wind pushes the heel into his brain. It knocks him out. His body rolls away with the wind pressing the heel further into his head with each turn of his body over the ground. He’s obviously dead and gone with the wind.
I go inside and find others laughing and drinking. I share the storm with them. We make it through the night with nothing more than a hangover to start the new day.
I know Rita did a lot of bad things, but I’ll always love her. Like even the worst of us, there was something good somewhere inside of her sound and fury. She was a vicious bitch, but she saved my life and gave me a future.
Kimberly has gone from a well-paid female executive one minute to a desperate woman the next. Thinking her day can't possibly get any worse, she finds out how wrong she is when she goes home. The only way to set things straight is to get even.
(Charlestown, Rhode Island) - Welcome to AILEEN’S GUESTHOUSE where locals and lodgers have more in common than first meets the eye. And, there's plenty of blame to go around.
Instant Karma by Storm Debris
