BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology Volume 4

by Darcia Helle

  Keep telling yourself that. “And you have three kids now. How's the newborn? Rachel, is it?”

  “Yes. Rachel is very healthy, and already has a little personality. She looks so much like Lawrence. The other two take after me. But Rachel has deep blue eyes, just like her father.”

  “I want to touch on two subjects that our readership is keen to hear about. First, your struggle with kidney cancer back in the nineties. How has that experience affected your life?”

  “I would say it... recreated me as a person. I made decisions at that time that have turned my life around,” Amber said. “It's made me stronger, more determined, and, I suppose, more carefree. I learned that life is not something to be feared, it's something to be enjoyed. And that nothing is more important than living fast and loving hard.”

  Sarah nodded in feigned agreement. “I know the cancer must have been difficult to deal with, but in the same year, you lost a child. Has that experience made you stronger?”

  Amber frowned. “I don't see how this has anything to do with being married to Lawrence.”

  “The article is about you, Mrs Westwood, not your husband.” Sarah said. “Our readers want to know you as a person, to see that you're just like them, as you said. The past is what makes us who we are, for better or worse. And it makes people more sympathetic to your story.”

  Amber hesitated, then gave in. “Amelia was her name. A sweet child. She was always smiling, hardly ever cried. She had beautiful skin, like her father. He was an islander. My world was shattered when I lost her. It was during my cancer. They called it cot death.”

  “When did you lose her?”

  “She died April eighteenth.”

  “Interesting,” said Sarah.

  “Interesting?” Amber looked confused.

  “That you lost her two months before your kidney transplant.”

  “It's morbid, not interesting. How do you know –”

  “When you had your operation?” Sarah cut in. “I have friends at the hospital. They pulled up your record. I also find it interesting how you keep saying she died, when there's no death certificate in the state's database.”

  “What are you talking about? Why would I lie about my own daughter's death?”

  “To cover your arse,” Sarah said flatly.

  “To... What do I have to cover it from?” Amber had lost all composure. She seemed both furious and anxious.

  Sarah looked over to the logo above the reception desk. “In truth we trust,” she read. “A noble slogan, Mrs Westwood. I wonder how your beloved husband would feel if he knew your dirty little secret.”

  “I have no secrets from my husband,” Amber spat back.

  “Tell me, Amber – can I call you Amber? How is it you found a kidney so soon? Waiting lists in Perth are endless, yet you manage to find a live donor four months after your diagnosis. Someone you'd never met before. What kind of person gives kidneys away to strangers?”

  “I bought a kidney –”

  “Yeah, you did,” Sarah cut her off again. “You bought a kidney. And what did that cost you, Amber? You weren't so rich back then, before you met old Mister Media Mogul husband of yours. Does the name Prudence Galliafino sound familiar? I'll take that pathetic expression on your face as a yes. She died last week, but she left an interesting letter behind in her will.” Sarah paused for effect. “Of course you remember her. You sold her your own infant daughter for an organ and a few more years, you god-damned selfish hag.”

  “How dare you –”

  “How dare I? Yeah, you're right. How dare I. I'm just a journalist. Where are my manners?” She stood, putting away her voice recorder. “Thanks for your time, Mrs Westwood. I must be going. I have an article to write, and a deadline to keep.”

  “Wait,” Amber stood too. She held her hands out stupidly, grasping for leverage. “Just wait a moment. You can't... God, please... You won't publish this, will you? I beg you, Sarah. I have a family.” Her eyes were full of fear. She clasped at her chest. “Please,” she whimpered.

  Sarah headed to the thick glass doors. They opened automatically and cold air buffeted her face. It was raining. She turned back to Mrs Westwood. “You deserve to be humiliated,” she said. “But I wouldn't do that to your children. They deserve to believe their mother is a good person. No kid should live with hate in their heart. That's for grown-ups. You look after them well.” She checked her watch to hide her face.”Give them the life that I was robbed of, Mum. I have to go.”

  ###

  About the Author:

  James Sophi is a huge nerd for fantasy and science fiction stories. He is currently studying professional writing and publishing, as well as creative writing at Curtin University in Western Australia. He really hates writing, and only endures it for the fame and glory which is sure to come... any time now.

  For more info, visit https://jsoph.blogspot.com.au/

  A Mile In My Shoes

  by Darcia Helle

  Copyright © 2012

  The girl behind the counter argued about taking the travel cup I wanted her to fill. “I don’t think I can do that,” she said. “I have to give you one of our cups. You know? It’s policy.”

  “It’s my choice,” I said. “I’m paying the same price either way. Why can’t you just pour the coffee into my cup?”

  I stopped short of launching into my lecture about the importance of recycling. We’d become crippled by our reliance on throw-away products. Convenience came before conservation. No one thought about future generations anymore. Maybe they never did. Where would they go when we’d depleted the earth of resources? The forests were all being turned into lumber and mounds of paper for the landfills. Our limited water supply kept lawns green and cars gleaming. The hubris of humanity would be our destruction.

  My heart ached for this teenage girl at the counter. She didn’t see the worries of the world. Not yet. In some ways, I envied her innocence.

  The girl eyed my travel cup as if I was trying to hand her a bomb. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I should ask someone.”

  This wasn’t my normal coffee shop. The people at my regular place knew me. They understood my concerns, knew how I felt about these things. I should have driven the extra few miles. But I was on my way to an estate sale and didn’t want to be late. I hadn’t expected this to be so difficult. The girl was doing her job and I couldn’t fault her for that. On this, though, I had to stand my ground, as it were. Some principles couldn’t be compromised.

  The manager finally gave her the okay to fill my travel cup. By this time, I had four people grumbling in line behind me. I smiled and wished them a good day.

  I climbed into my Prius and allowed myself a moment to sit back and sip my coffee. I had a busy day ahead of me. First, the estate sale; then five hours volunteering at the soup kitchen; and, finally, our group’s first rally. We called ourselves Lethal Rejection, a play on the term lethal injection, which was, of course, used to kill death row inmates. Needless to say, we all fought against the death penalty. Our reasons varied, with some leaning toward practical issues like cost effectiveness, and others standing on moral ground. As for me, I found the practice barbaric. The death penalty was nothing more than government-sanctioned murder.

  The very idea of killing someone made me quiver. I couldn’t imagine taking another life. Despite my absolute aversion to murder, or maybe because of it, I could not condone death as a punishment for killing.

  What happened to the idea of rehabilitation? Our government and our society had long ago given up on the people housed in our prisons. We didn’t even pretend to rehabilitate. We locked them away, forgot about them. Sometimes killed them.

  I sighed as I twisted the key in the ignition. Lethal Rejection was the start of opening people’s minds to this issue. Murder was never the right answer.

  I adjusted the radio to the oldies station before heading off to the estate sale. The song Walk A Mile In My Shoes by Joe South came on. This was one of my favorite
songs. The lyrics could sometimes make me cry. If only people at least tried to empathize with those in different circumstances, with different beliefs, the world would be a much better place.

  The estate sale was being held at one of the big homes in the old section of town. These houses were a minimum of a hundred years old, and had often been owned by one family for several generations. I parked out on the street and joined the crowd gathered in the driveway.

  After wandering through the house for a look at the larger items, we all met back outside. Rather than a straight sale, this was an auction. Some of the items were boxed and were being offered as what they called a blind bid. You had no way of knowing what was in the box until you won that item. I’d only participated in one of this type of auction before. I’d paid $15 for a medium-sized box. It turned out that box had a full set of Corelle dishes. I’d donated them all to the soup kitchen where I volunteer.

  From the buzz of conversation around me, I learned most people here were competing for antiques. The house was full of them. Old furniture and paintings in every room. I wasn’t interested in the antiques. Nor was I interested in items I could later sell for profit. My goal was to purchase the small items, the things most people threw away. Another form of recycling, really.

  Two hours later, I had a sealed cardboard box in my trunk. I’d only paid $10 for whatever was inside.

  I drove home and lugged the box into my living room. Since I didn’t have to be at the soup kitchen for another thirty minutes, I decided to see what I’d purchased. Perhaps something inside could be used at the kitchen.

  When I pulled the box open, vintage clothing practically spilled out. Jackets and slacks. Button-down shirts. Ties. Two pairs of dress shoes sat at the very bottom. Everything was in excellent condition. I checked the tags on one of the shirts. Brioni. New, this shirt boasted a price tag of $500 or more. The blue pinstripe in my hand looked as if it had been worn once, if that. I had a vision of the clothing’s owner. A wealthy man. The kind who attended countless meetings in board rooms, where a handful of other similarly dressed men sat around making decisions about the world around them. This sort of man had his clothing dry cleaned. Didn’t want to be seen in the same shirt and tie more than a couple of times.

  I carefully refolded the shirts. They appeared to be the perfect size for a man I knew. Benny volunteered at the soup kitchen whenever he was able. Not long ago, he’d relied on that same kitchen for his daily meals. He’d been homeless, a victim of this rotten economy and a corporation that outsourced his job to someone in India. A month ago, Benny had gotten a job at a used-car lot. Despite the blistering heat of Floridian summers, all employees were required to wear suits. Benny had sold his last and dearest possession, a platinum pocket watch passed down through four generations of the men in his family, in order to buy the one suit he now wore to work each day. This ten dollar box would be treasure for Benny.

  I carried the box back to my trunk, then drove the few miles to the soup kitchen. The day was overcast. One of those Florida skies that could bring torrents of rain or sunshine at any moment. Much like life itself, the sky above gave no hint of which direction it would lead us.

  The afternoon passed in a flurry of activity. We fed one hundred twenty-seven men, women and children. Since the economy crashed, Tampa’s homeless population has exploded. Yet, the bankers and politicians responsible remain comfortable in their mansions.

  Benny didn’t show up. I assumed he’d been working, standing in the sun on a black-topped car lot, hoping for that one sale that would earn him enough commission to pay board at the rundown motel where he now lived. Since the motel wasn’t far from the Supreme Court, where Lethal Rejection’s first rally was being held in just shy of an hour, I decided to stop by and give Benny the box of clothing.

  When I pulled my Prius into the parking lot, I noticed a large group of people clustered in front of the building. My stomach lurched as I noticed they all faced Benny’s door. Two police cruisers sat in the middle of the lot, lights flashing. The lights bounced off the disheveled crowd, and the scene looked like a disco party gone wrong.

  I’d barely gotten my car parked when I leapt out and raced across the lot. “What’s happening?” I yelled into the crowd.

  A few people turned. I recognized Chloe, the middle-aged woman who lived next door to Benny. She’d been a victim of severe spousal abuse and had spent the better part of her life running from the man she’d once loved. He’d died last year, beaten to death in a bar fight, and so Chloe was now finally free of him. But a life of running had left her with little to hold onto.

  She looked at me now, briefly, then her eyes skittered away and she shook her head.

  I ran past the crowd of onlookers. Benny’s door sagged open. Two uniformed officers stood a few feet outside the door, looking in, silent smirks playing on their lips. I heard Benny scream, long and loud, and my legs carried me faster, past the uniformed officers and into the motel room.

  The scene inside will remain forever etched in my mind. Benny was sprawled on the floor. Blood seeped from a gash on the side of his head. One uniformed officer had a Taser gun in hand, still blasting current through an unconscious Benny. His body convulsed and saliva bubbled out the side of his mouth.

  A second uniformed officer stood by laughing like a schoolyard bully. He held a baton loosely at his side. The expandable black metal was fully extended. Blood dripped from the end.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed.

  The officers might have told me to stop. To back away. I don’t remember, really. No matter how many times I replay the scene in my head, all I remember is the sound of Benny gurgling.

  I had just dropped to my knees at Benny’s side when the first blow struck my shoulder. The officer with the baton screamed something at me and the baton hit a second time. I fell backward on the worn carpet. I remember the rough feel of it beneath my fingers, and how it smelled of mildew and carpet shampoo. I must have forced my way back to my knees. I wanted to touch Benny, to be sure he was breathing. I didn’t understand what was happening and I’m sure I must have said as much.

  The officer with the baton belted me again. He was sneering and screaming for me to lie on the ground. I wanted to stand up, to explain that this was all a terrible mistake. Benny was a peaceful man. He couldn’t have done anything to deserve such treatment. But the officer wouldn’t stop hitting me, wouldn’t stop shouting. I tried to tell him Benny was a friend. I wanted to help. That’s all I’d ever wanted.

  Benny stirred, tried to prop himself up on his elbows. The baton-crazy officer slammed that metallic bat into the side of Benny’s head. I screamed. I heard the sound echoing in my mind, over and over, as I pushed up to my feet and charged forward. The officer with the Taser raised his arm and suddenly the world was on fire. My body erupted. I spun sideways, slamming into the baton-wielding officer and taking him down with me.

  I don’t remember anything more. Hours later, I awoke in the hospital. My wrists were cuffed to the side of the bed. One arm was in a plaster cast, fractured in two places. I had a concussion, a broken nose, and three cracked ribs.

  The officer I’d stumbled into after being shot with the Taser had hit his head against the corner of the bureau. He died the next morning from a brain hemorrhage.

  The news came in the way of a formal arrest and murder charge, while I lay cuffed to the hospital bed.

  All these years later, I have managed to piece most of the story together. Benny had been a case of mistaken identity. A witness had seen him when she drove by the car lot and identified him as the man who’d raped her eight-year-old daughter. That evening, after seeing Benny up close in his own hospital room, she’d realized she was mistaken. Eyewitnesses are notoriously wrong, which is why so many innocent people are in prisons. Benny was fortunate, in a way. The woman had realized her error before he’d gone to prison, though he’d almost lost his life in the process.

  The officer with the baton had a
niece who’d been raped by a family friend. The girl had been six at the time. His anger at the situation came through his baton and out on Benny and me.

  None of this mattered during my trial. The officers told a version completely different from mine. I’d attacked the baton-wielding officer. I’d been armed with a knife. I’d threatened him, wrestled the baton from him, then viciously whipped his head. They picked apart my life and depicted me as a radical lunatic at odds with our government. Their versions, the three of them in their shiny uniforms, matched up. I had no one to back up my story. Benny had been unconscious.

  I was convicted of murder one. As it goes, the murder of a police officer is always treated with more reverence than the murder of an average citizen. The trial had been short, the jury’s deliberation even shorter. Death by lethal injection, the judge had said.

  My appeals were all denied. I had no evidence, only my story. And my story doesn’t matter to anyone.

  Tonight, at ten p.m., my death sentence will be carried out. I’m now being strapped to a gurney. The stark white sheets are cool beneath my skin. Strangers look on, as the band tightens around my arm. Soon a needle will slide into my vein and the liquid will ooze through to stop my heart. I will be murdered by the state.

  My group, Lethal Rejection, is outside. Benny is now their leader. Under his guidance, the group I started with a mere handful of people has now grown to twenty-five thousand. Over the years, they never lost hope that justice would prevail and I would be freed. They rallied and raised money for my defense. They stood by me and proclaimed my innocence. Their dedication lightens my heart, even now, in these last moments when I know all hope is lost.

  Benny is not outside with the rest of the group. His is the only friendly face watching from the other side of the glass. He insisted on being here to see me off. I smile at him as I feel the first chill of poison in my blood. His eyes are moist with unshed tears. He’s wearing the familiar Brioni pinstriped shirt.