Sal is back with a witchy flash of… Well, I’ll just let you read it and decide for yourself. You’re gonna like this one – stands up to his reputation as a master flasher, like all the previous ones.

How ’bout you send us a flash of your own – think of something criminal, something dark and sleazy, something that will win y’a a………. HEY – Thorn never told us what the prize is for this contest. What a deal! NO PRIZE? Talk about criminal and sleazy! Anyway – if you haven’t sent your entry in yet, check out the rules at www.awordwithyoupress.com/2011/08/30/criminally-in-vain-a-thrillogy-announcing-our-new-contest/ .

While we’re waitin’ for your story, we’ll read Sal’s,

NOW IT’S US, NOW IT’S WE

Ben sang aloud in the empty house.

“We get letters. We get letters. Stacks and stacks of letters” The Perry Como girls belting it out every Saturday night.

Life was simple then. The future looked bright ahead. He thought of Brando in the backseat of a New York City cab. “I coulda been a contender.” Johnny Ray singing “Walking in the Rain.” What the hell happened? He looked at Phyllis lying there and  knew if he had the chance he’d tell young men leaving teen hood to keep the hell away from marriage-happy women. He got sucked in and couldn’t get out. Then Connie showed him how.

From his side pocket he removed two neatly typed letters. To Connie: “I will love you forever.” A sheet of promises wrapped in a confession. “I did it. We’re free. The wicked old witch is dead.”

He unfolded the other letter and read it, his brown eyes darting from the suicide sheet to the bed sheet where Phyllis lay very dead beside an empty sleeping-pill bottle. A few stray pills dotted the white shag rug.

“We get letters,” he sang, then nodded approval at the forged signature and the dead wife. He waved both letters, one in each hand, like wings for flying, then folded one letter and left in under the ring box on her dresser. The other he slipped delicately back into the side pocket of his get-away suit.

Ben dialed 911.

###

Plastic-gloved, Detective Trezza lifted the letter from the dresser and gave it a quick eye. “Suicide note?” he asked. Ben flashed  the rehearsed face of a man bereaved.

Trezza made a sign to the accompanying policeman who now approached the widower, then he read the letter. “We’re free. The wicked old witch––”

Ben patted his side pocket.

-END-

Salvatore Buttaci is an obsessive-compulsive writer whose work has appeared widely. He was the 2007 recipient of the $500 Cyber-wit Poetry Award.

His latest collection of short-short fiction, 200 Shorts, is available at

www.amazon.com/200-Shorts-Salvatore-Buttaci/dp/0984639241/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314991699&sr=1-1

His follow-up collection of 164 flash stories, Flashing My Shorts, also published by All things That Matter Press, is available at www.amazon.com/Flashing-My-Shorts-Salvatore-Buttaci/dp/0984259473

He lives with his wife Sharon in West Virginia.