This short story is actually based on a true story. Yes, really!
It is not a biography nor is it considered a historical account.
August Wolf was a real person and he reportedly worked in the lab with the atomic bomb — that was a real thing.
Him being left on the side of the road for dead was true enough.
But the rest – the names and places have been changed to protect the guilty.
I dropped the e in Wolf like that would somehow protect me from his “handlers”.
I named the character Jason Carroll, after my parents, combining their names, but they had nothing to do with the story. I’m not sure I ever told them about the real character I knew named August Wolf.
To the best of my recollection, it went something like this.
I was sitting at the typewriter in my office late one night with the window open, enjoying the sweet smells and familiar sounds drifting in on the breeze and all of the sudden my imagination just shifted gears — like it’s prone to do.
I imagined someone, a man, might be outside the window watching me as I typed.
I quickly found myself inside the stranger’s mind, looking from the outside in and perhaps judging each word I pecked out of the dull story I was working on. 
Once I finished that twisted little short story I, of course, had to give the female at the typewriter a voice.
That is how Max and Abigail were brought to life. 
I quite enjoyed developing the characters and then condensing them into short stories.
After a few short stories under my belt I gravitated to flash fiction which awakened a new passion that I never knew existed inside myself.
But keep in mind flash fiction is a different animal than the short story. The short story allows much leeway where the flash fiction genre often times comes in at 1000 words or less, but that’s for another time.
Now go enjoy some short stories my friend.
If you’re not writing a short story I hope you’re at least reading one and let’s celebrate what’s left of May and the month of short stories.
Our formative years shape our perspective and the culmination of our experiences spark the creative juices.
Sometimes the juices they spark are as sweet as honey and nectar … or as tart as a key lime … as sour as a pickle … but sometimes they are bitter.
So so bitter.
May usually has a very positive influence on my mood despite being the anniversary month of the death of my older sister 48 years ago and my mother eleven years ago.
I think May has got me in my feels. A little too much I might add because my emotions are running the gamut friends!! Not in a creative kind of way either.
I just miss them. I miss my mother.
And.
And I find myself rehashing the days that sparked a few of my creative juices.
Today I was going over that stormy day eleven years ago- the day that inspired the following poem.
The Last
The last bit of sorrow swelling
from closed eyes…
sitting as if waiting…
near the temple at the outer corner…
The storm outside was magnificent!
Sheets of rain surrounded us like walls of glass, but we broke through at 90 miles per hour.
Rolling thunder rattled the windows, as if mumbling words
only we could understand.
Brilliant shocks of light
from every direction lighted the way;
each dazzling strike followed by ostentatious paternal claps that said, Enough! Take my hand – hurry!
The thick charcoal sky parted in bilious shades of gray like the Red Sea…
And I saw…
The last moment –
the last millisecond
the last breath.
The last bit of sorrow
and pain
and worry.
The last tear sitting –
as if waiting
near the temple
at the outer corner of her left eye.
I caught it…
I watched it soak into the edge
of a paper napkin and sealed it in a tiny bag.
No words were necessary.
She was out of earshot –
out of the audible range
of the childlike pleadings of stay.
She was at last where she longed to be;
the two of them as one again.
Somewhere safe above the storm,
laughing like children and holding hands.
It was the last time I saw
her and daddy together.
*It was the worst spring storm I can recall. I had barely made it home before the bottom fell out and I was enjoying the heavenly show. I know it seems ‘abnormal’ but I do love a good storm. This one was raging an hour’s drive in any direction.
I was on the phone talking to my youngest sister when the doctor called.
I had just told her our mother was alert and talking, she looked good and her condition was stable. Moments later the doctor was contradicting me.
“Your mother went into cardiac arrest blah blah blah. I was not aware of the DNR blah blah blah. We are in the process of trying to restart her heart, doing CPR blah blah blah. Do you want us to continue blah blah blah?”
There was no problem with the connection yet his gentle voice came in shrill broken fragments. I had him [the doctor]on one line, my youngest sister on another and I was frozen between them. I must have asked, “what should I do?”
I recall my sister choking out the words “let her go.”
My husband had the truck ready before I could hang up the phone.
The photo above is where I laid flowers on the memorial today; the memorial I made for myself – where I planted the last tear that I mentioned in the poem.
Purple was her favorite color. There is only a small red sandstone (from her native east Texas) marking the teardrop’s final resting place.
Between the garden and the grandkids I have completely neglected NPM. tsk tsk tsk
I must somehow set aside a bit of quality time for National Poetry Month in days remaining. I just must! Maybe I’ll set an alarm for that too. I only have fifty-gillion to five-gazillion alarms already.
So today I said to myself, “self you need to read one and post one.” Of course that won’t catch me up. So I read Too Much Pain by Donna Ashworth. And for a post I went willy-nilly and typed “22” into one of my files and this is what popped up.
Some people do the same thing when looking for a bible verse to inspire/guide/comfort and swear that fate will always give you an appropriate response.
It was NPM 2014 when I first shared Ted’s poem about his daughter. In that post the husband and I had another enjoyable conversation about the tragedies that surrounded the man.
You should give it a read.
But now I present to you….
Full Moon and Little Frieda
By Ted Hughes
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket – And you listening. A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor.
Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath – A dark river of blood, many boulders, Balancing unspilled milk. ‘Moon!’ you cry suddenly, ‘Moon! Moon!’
The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work That points at him amazed.
Ole Teddy published a book of prose and poetry to his first wife [and first wife to die by suicide] in Birthday Letters not long before his demise.
Lord, help me not judge. I have lived a less than stellar life, my own poetry is evidence.
I like to believe that the spring equinox marks the actual New Year. It just makes more sense with all of the new life and new activities going on in nature.
I believe we can find the same newness within ourselves if we let nature guide us.
So cheers 🥂!! Here’s to new life, new growth, and a happy HaPpY new year.
P. S. Speaking of new … I have new book covers in the works. I’m kinda looking forward to these new creations.
Here in the northern hemisphere today is the winter solstice, the first day of winter, aka midwinter. It is reportedly the shortest day of the year hence the longest night.
It is also that time of year I routinely share this bit of poetry with you all.
The Real Janna Hill in 