The Last Hour of the Day ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

The Last Hour of the Day
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(Published in The Santa Fe Writers’ Project Journal.)

Holton had come a long way from the city. He hadn’t seen another person for three days. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt at ease in his surroundings. He sat down on the riverbank underneath a tree and looked at the sky. The clouds had lifted and the sunlight glinted in gold on the water. There was still beauty in the world.

He took a tiny sip of water from the canteen. He didn’t have much left and he knew he was going to have to get more, and soon. He could go for a long time without food but water was a different matter. He would never get thirsty enough to drink from the river. If drinking from the river didn’t kill him, it could make him sick enough that he might never recover.

He took a tiny bundle from his pack and unwrapped it carefully; it contained the last of his food—a carrot, a piece of bread, a chunk of dried meat, and some candy. He wrapped the bread around the meat and began taking tiny bites. He chewed slowly to make it last longer.

Would building a fire and boiling some water from the river make the water safe for drinking, he wondered? If he was going to build a fire, he might as well stay the night. He was weighing these considerations in his mind when a sound startled him. He looked up to see a man walking toward him and he realized the sound he heard was the man singing. He grabbed for his pack and thrust his hand inside to where his gun rested on the bottom.

“I don’t have anything you want,” he said, when the man was close enough to speak to.

“Don’t worry,” said the man, who went by the name of Clement. “I’m not going to bother you. I only want to rest here for a while.”

“I’d like it better if you were to move along. There’s nothing here for you.”

“No doubt,” Clement said with a little laugh. He took off his boots and lay on the ground with his feet toward the river, just to the right of Holton. He was wearing clean white socks.

“I have a gun here and I know how to use it,” Holton said. “Just in case you have any ideas about trying to steal what I have.”

“I’m not going to steal anything. You have nothing I want.”

“What do you want then?”

He looked at Holton as if studying him. “I don’t want anything from you,” he said. “I’m not going to do you any harm.”

“What’s your game, then?”

“I don’t have one. Maybe I just want to hear the sound of a voice other than my own. Is that too much to ask?”

“I’m not much for talking. I really ought to be on my way.”

“Where exactly is it you’re headed?”

Holton relaxed a little and forgot about drawing the gun. He didn’t have bullets anyway. “I got out of the city and just kept going,” he said. “This is where I ended up. I don’t know where I am. I don’t even know if I’m in the same state or in another one.”

“Geographical boundaries don’t seem to matter much now.”

“Everybody in the city was dying. I knew I would die, too, if I stayed there. Once I left the city, I just kept going until I ended up here.”

“How long ago was that?” Clement asked.

“A week. Maybe longer. I seem to have lost some time and I don’t know how much.”

“Are you sure you don’t have the sickness?”

“I know what the symptoms are,” Holton said, “and I don’t have them yet.”

“But you expect to have them?”

“We heard the enemy dropped bombs with the sickness in them on every city. The people in the city would die first and then the sickness would spread to the spaces between the cities and the people there would die too.”

“You had family in the city?” Clement asked.

“I was new to the city. I have a wife and child but they’re far away in another place.”

“Are they all right?”

“I don’t know. There’s no way for me to find out now. I had in my mind that if I just kept going as long as I could I might come to a place where the sickness hadn’t reached or couldn’t reach for some reason, and there would be people there like me.”

“People without the sickness?”

“Yes. Or maybe people who know how to keep from getting the sickness.”

“You’re witnessing the death of the human race,” Clement said. “Not just the decline but the end. God brought it into existence and now He’s ending it.”

“You believe in God?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know what I believe. If there’s a God, why is he doing this to us?”

“He’s not doing anything to us. It’s just something that happens. Do you know how many extinct species there are in the history of the world? There’s about to be another one, that’s all. Man is no more important than any of the other species that have become extinct. We’re important to ourselves but that’s all. This planet was here a long time before we came along, and it will be here long after we’re gone.”

“There might be places where people will survive the sickness. We don’t know yet.”

“They might survive for a while, but it will eventually catch them in the end.”

“How do you know so much about it?” Holton asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I don’t know any more about it than anybody else. I’m just repeating what somebody else has told me.”

“Maybe they’re wrong,” Holton said. “Maybe you’re wrong.”

“It sounds like you want to go on living,” Clement said.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have left the city.”

“Maybe we’ve reached the end. Maybe there’s no point in going on. We could go on for another day or another month or even longer, but the end result is going to be the same. Why prolong it?”

“You haven’t told me yet where you’re going or where you’ve been,” Holton said.

Clement cleared his throat and looked out at the river. “I’m staying a couple of miles from here, over in those hills,” he said, as he pointed over his shoulder away from the river. “I stopped running shortly after the bombs fell. I figured there was no use trying to outrun the sickness. I wanted to spend my last days in relative comfort.”

“You have shelter?” Holton asked.

“Yes.”

“Food and water?”

“Food enough to last for as long as I need it and plenty of water. There’s a well nearby. It has the coldest, purest water you ever saw.”

“And there’s nobody else around?” Holton asked.

“It’s so far back in the hills nobody would ever find it.”

“How did you find it, then?”

“It’s a place I’ve known about since I was a child.”

The sun was going down behind the trees beyond the river and there was a sudden chill in the air. Holton thought about moving on but was too tired to even get up off the ground.

“I need clean water,” he said carefully. “I was just thinking about boiling some water from the river when you came along.”

“Don’t think about drinking that muck,” Clement said. “It has enough contaminants in it to kill the entire population.” He laughed at the irony of his remark. “I doubt if boiling would ever make it safe enough to drink.”

“I might have no other choice,” Holton said. “If I don’t get water soon, I’ll be dead from something other than the sickness.”

“You can come to the place where I’m staying,” Clement said, “if you don’t mind tramping a couple of miles through the woods. There’s as much water there as you could want.”

“I have nothing to trade for it.”

Clement snorted with amusement. “It’s not my water,” he said. “It was there when I came along and it will still be there after I’m gone. You might as well get yourself some of it while you can.”

Holton agreed to go with Clement, so, without another word, Clement put his books back on. When he had them laced up, he stood and motioned for Holton to follow him.

In a short time after they entered the dense forest, Holton was sure they were lost but Clement kept going without hesitation. The terrain was rough and rocky in places and they seemed to be going upward most of the way, as if they were climbing the side of a mountain. Finally, after what seemed two hours or more of very difficult walking, they came to a clearing with a little cabin in it.

Clement took Holton inside the cabin, which was two little rooms, and pointed to one of his two canvas chairs and told him to sit down and rest. While Holton was taking off his shoes and socks, Clement brought him a pitcher of water and a tin cup. Holton drank most of the water in the pitcher so Clement filled it again.

Clement had a little cook stove in one corner of the cabin that served as the kitchen. He told Holton to go out behind the cabin and get himself washed while he prepared the food. He gave Holton a shirt and pair of pants that were like new to put on after he had washed and told him to keep them because he had no use for them.

After Holton had made himself as clean as he could and put on the clean shirt and pants, he went back inside the cabin. Clement was just putting the food on the little table. He gestured for Holton to sit down.

They dined silently on canned soup, beans, spinach, and tomatoes. Holton ate his fill and leaned back in the chair with contentment. He was thinking that he should leave and not prevail too much on Clement’s hospitality, but he knew he would never find his way back down the mountain in the dark.

“You’ll want to stay the night now,” Clement said, as if he was reading Holton’s thoughts. “The forest is not safe at night if you’re not familiar with it.”

“Not safe,” Holton said. He thought about those words and then laughed.

After they were finished eating and Clement had cleared away the food and washed up the dishes, they went outside and sat on the step of the little cabin. It was so dark they couldn’t see more than five feet in front of them. Clement offered Holton a cigarette but he declined it, not liking himself in the role of the taker who had nothing to offer.

They talked about pleasant things that they knew before all the trouble came about. They talked about dogs and cats they had owned and books they had read and music they liked and trips abroad they had taken. Holton told Clement about his ten-year-old son and about how he and his wife planned to divorce, but if she was dead now, as he figured she was, there would be no need for the divorce. He said this with irony as if the thought amused him, but then he began to cry uncontrollably.

“It’s all right,” Clement said, unembarrassed, putting his arm around Holton’s shoulder. “I think you just need to let it out and then you’ll feel better.”

When they were back inside the cabin and Clement had rolled himself in his sleeping bag on the floor and Holton was lying on the cot, Clement started talking about the end that he knew was coming. He didn’t mind dying so much, he said; he had had a good life, what there was of it. He had seen the world and known true happiness. His greatest fear now was that there would be no one to bury him properly when he died. His body would be left lying out to rot in the open air where flies and other insects and starving animals would feast on it down to the bones. He could see himself, he said, one week after he was dead, one month, one year. It was too horrible to contemplate. He had seen and smelled rotting corpses in the war and he believed there was nothing worse. If he had a way to make himself evaporate in the air, to no longer exist, he would do it.

“I was hoping to find somebody I could rely on to bury me when the time comes,” he said.

“Maybe you won’t die,” Holton said. “As long as you’re alive, there’s hope you’ll go on living.”

“No, I’ve got the sickness in my bones. I can feel it. It won’t be long now.”

To humor him, and to repay Clement for his kindness and generosity, Holton agreed to stay for a few days and, if Clement died during that time, he would see that he was buried properly, in as deep a hole as Holton could dig. He would pile large rocks on the grave to make sure no animals could ever dig it up. He would even read some verses from the Bible if that’s what Clement wanted. In his heart, however, he was sure that things would not play out that way.

They slept soundly that night and the next day had a pleasant time relaxing in the sun-dappled shade outside the cabin, talking and laughing and forgetting the terrible state the world was in. By the evening, twenty-four hours after he had arrived at Clement’s cabin, Holton was starting to show symptoms of the sickness. His vision was blurred and his face wore a deathly pallor. He was vomiting blood and babbling incoherently.

Holton passed a very bad night on the cot in the little cabin. Clement tended him the best he could, but there wasn’t much he could do for him; he had no medicine. He gave him drinks of water, bathed his face in cold water, and tried to soothe his fears the best he could. Toward morning his body began turning black and he died just as the birds were waking up in the trees outside the cabin.

As soon as Clement realized Holton was dead, he went outside and began digging the grave under the trees in the clearing, in the spot he had set aside for his own grave. When he was satisfied the grave was the appropriate depth, he went back inside the cabin and put Holton’s body in the canvas bag that he had planned would contain his own body when the time came. Then he carried the bag outside and carefully arranged it on the floor of the grave so Holton was facing up. Gasping for air—realizing he was no longer as young as he once was—he said a silent prayer for Holton and, when he was finished, he filled in the grave.

All day long and during the night he expected to begin to see the symptoms of the sickness in himself, but the symptoms didn’t appear. When he awoke the next morning, he felt fine and was very hungry. He ate an enormous breakfast, washed himself at the pump and put on clean clothes.

Two days later he still felt well and healthy. He looked at his face in the mirror for any signs of change but saw none. He felt as well as he had ever felt in his life, in spite of the reduced circumstances in which he was living. He began to think that he was being spared the sickness for some reason or another.

That night a voice seemed to speak to him in a dream. He didn’t know if it was Holton’s voice or somebody else’s, but it was a voice he knew—maybe a voice from his distant past. The voice was telling him to go to the river and follow it south all the way to its end where it emptied into the sea—hundreds of miles. At the end of that journey he would find some kind of answer—perhaps not the answer he wished for—but an answer nonetheless.

He awoke in the morning with a resolve he hadn’t felt in a long while. The resolve had taken the place of the resignation he had felt since the bombs fell. He put as much food as he could carry into his pack, two canteens of water, and a change of clothes. He took one last look around the cabin and went out its door for the last time. With the slap of the screen door still in his ears, he looked toward the mound of dirt under the trees in the clearing and gave a little salute of farewell. Then he was gone, melding into the trees of the forest as if he had never existed.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

Mr. Woodbine is Here

Mr. Woodbine is Here image 1

Mr. Woodbine is Here
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

The nurse came in and took Erwin’s blood pressure. He opened one eye and looked at her and asked if he was dead yet. She ignored him and a little while later she was back again, fussing with the equipment beside the bed, turning dials and flipping switches and writing things down on her clipboard.  A clear bag of liquid hung on a pole beside the bed and drained into his arm. He wanted to ask what it was but he was too weak to get the words out. He was sure he was dying, but he told himself he didn’t really mind. Life was far too much trouble, anyway.

In between times when the nurse was fussing someplace else, he saw people in the room with him. They moved quietly around the bed, as if they were keeping watch or waiting—for what he didn’t know. He couldn’t see them very well, but he knew they were there. (Sometimes one of them would lean over and look closely into his face.) If he tried to speak to them, they withdrew. He wanted only to say hello.

One morning after he had been given a sponge bath (he was beyond embarrassment), he opened his eyes and saw a strange man standing at the foot of the bed looking at him—strange because Erwin had never seen him before but strange also because he was wearing a double-breasted, pin-striped suit with a red carnation.

“Who are you?” Erwin asked in his faint voice.

“How are you feeling, kid?” the man asked.

“Feel stupendous.”

“You know you were shot three times?”

“Feels like more.”

“You know who did it?”

“Not telling.”

“You had surgery to remove the bullets.”

“They didn’t need to bother. I know I’m going to die.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not here to say one way or another.”

“You a doctor?”

“No, my name is Mr. Woodbine.”

“You the angel of death?”

“No, but I appreciate the compliment.”

“The undertaker?”

“No, no, no.” He took a cigar out of his pocket, rolled it around between his fingers, and lit it.

“You’re not supposed to smoke.”

“Well, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“You’re police, aren’t you?”

“No, but I will tell you that I’m closer to being the angel of death than an officer of the law.”

“I give up then. I don’t feel like guessing anymore.”

“You give up too easily,” Mr. Woodbine said with a little laugh. He puffed on the cigar and blew a big cloud of blue smoke out over the bed.

“That ugly old nurse with the red hair is really mean,” Erwin said. “If she comes in and sees you smoking, she’ll probably stab you.”

“I’m not worried about her.”

“Who are those people standing behind you?”

“Oh, they’re nobody.”

“Well, if they’re there, they must be somebody.”

“They’re just curious. They don’t have much to do with their time and they want to know what’s going on.”

“That doesn’t tell me who they are.”

“They’re people you don’t ordinarily see unless you’re in the state you’re in.”

“Dying, you mean?”

“You said it. I didn’t.

“Tell me more.”

Mr. Woodbine opened his mouth to speak again, but the ugly nurse with the red hair came in and he left. When she pulled back the sheet and started poking at Erwin’s legs, he said, “Do you smell cigar smoke?”

“Why? Have you been smoking?”

“Not me.”

“If you smoke in this room, you’ll set off the sprinklers and that will make certain people very unhappy.” She pointed at the ceiling.

“I’ll tell him.”

“Who?”

“That man that was just here.”

“If anybody was smoking,” she said, “I would know it. I’ve got a nose like a bloodhound.”

“Am I going to die?”

“You don’t think I’d tell you, do you?”

He went to sleep again and a large, indeterminate chunk of time passed, maybe days or maybe only hours. Once when he awoke, he was aware of rain pattering against the window and then of Mr. Woodbine sitting in the chair beside the bed smoking his cigar.

“How are you feeling now, son?” Mr. Woodbine asked.

“How do you get in here all dressed up like that, smoking that cigar? Don’t the nurses try to stop you?”

“They don’t see me.”

“Well, that must be convenient. You’ll have to let me in on some of your secrets.”

“There’s nobody around. I thought we could talk a little more.”

“What time is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Tell me how you came to be shot.”

“An argument over money.”

“Ah!”

“And not very much money, either.”

“Not worth dying for?”

“If I live, I’m going to go find the rat that shot me and shoot him. Only I’m going to do it right. I’ll make sure he’s dead.”

“How do you know he’s not in police custody already for shooting you?”

“Maybe he is. I don’t know anything about what’s going on out there.” He pointed feebly toward the window. “The police were here asking me questions but I wouldn’t tell them anything. I want to take care of that rat myself. I never liked that guy anyway.”

“Revenge will be sweet?”

“It already is, just thinking about it.”

“What if I told you he’ll be taken care of and you don’t need to bother yourself?”

“I’m still going to kill him, except I’m going to make him suffer.”

“The way you’re suffering now?”

“Only worse.”

“Even if you live, you might not walk again.”

“I can kill the son of a bitch from a sitting position.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Why am I telling you all this?” Erwin said. “I don’t even know who you are!”

“It’s all right, because I know you.”

“I never saw you before in my life.”

“You have, many times, but you aren’t able to remember. I was there the time you nearly drowned in the swimming pool in high school. Remember?”

“I remember the incident but I don’t remember you.”

“Some of our memories are blocked out. The ones we’re not supposed to remember, for one reason or another.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“Not the first time and certainly not the last.”

“Tell those people to stay away from me. They’re getting on my nerves.”

“You just rest now. I think I hear that mean nurse coming.”

Anytime he was conscious, he expected to see Mr. Woodbine again, but Mr. Woodbine came no more.

Finally the day came when he arose from the bed on his own without any nurses fussing around him. His clothes were there, draped neatly over the chair. His wallet, glasses and keychain were on the table beside the bed where he would be sure to see them. He knew that he was being allowed to leave the hospital. Everything that was wrong with him had been fixed. He was renewed. He was going to have a fresh start. All his thoughts of revenge were gone. He didn’t even remember what had brought him to the hospital in the first place. He couldn’t wait to get outside and breathe the fresh air, even if it did smell like bus fumes. He jumped into his clothes excitedly.

He was going to tell the nurses goodbye as he walked past, but they were busy and didn’t look at him. Instead of waiting for the elevator, he walked down the five flights of stairs to the street. It felt so good to use his legs! Who said he might not ever walk again?

It was a brilliantly sunny day. As he walked down the broad steps of the hospital, he saw Mr. Woodbine waiting for him at the curb. They got into a waiting car and, as the car sped away, he lowered the window to feel the rush of air in his face. He was leaving pain and suffering behind. His problems, at last, were at an end.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

Send Me a Postcard ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Send Me a Postcard
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(Published in Fringe Magazine.)

Since Paul’s mother lost her job at the hospital, she’s not the same anymore.  She stays in bed a lot of the time during the daylight hours, something she never did before. If she’s not in bed, she’s sitting in front of the TV in her bathrobe smoking cigarettes and watching soap operas and game shows with the sound turned all the way down. He stands in the doorway looking at her and she doesn’t seem to know he’s there until she sees his shadow on the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asks, craning her neck around to look at him. “You creep around the house like a thief.”

“I’m just looking at you,” he says. “What’s for dinner?”

“Oh, is it time for dinner?” she asks, looking at the clock. “I didn’t think it was that late.”

He goes into the kitchen and fixes himself a peanut butter sandwich. He is glad to see she has been to the store and bought some fresh bread while he was at school. He puts the sandwich on a plate and goes back into the living room where she is.

“Just help yourself to whatever you can find in the kitchen,” she says. “I don’t feel like cooking dinner.”

“Did you eat anything?” he asks.

“I don’t have any appetite,” she says. “I’ll have something later.” She reaches for her pack of Lucky Strikes and takes one out and lights it and inhales deeply.

He looks at her skeptically but she doesn’t know it. “Smoking is bad for you,” he says.

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’m not ever going to smoke.”

“Bully for you.”

“How about if we go to a movie tonight? There’s a western at the Criterion and a comedy at the Gem.”

“How about if we stay at home and watch TV? There’s a western on one channel and a comedy on another one, and you don’t have to pay to see them. I’m not made out of money, you know.”

He marvels at how mothers always say they’re not made out of money, but he says nothing because he doesn’t want to argue. He would someday like to see a mother made out of money, though. That must be a sight worth seeing.

“I have to write a book report,” he says.

“How lovely for you.”

“Do you want to help me?”

“What’s the book?”

“A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.”

“Isn’t that kind of a grown-up book for eighth grade?”

“I read grown-up books all the time.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. You’re already quite the little man, aren’t you?”

“I chose that book to read from the list. I’m the only person in the class who read it.”

“Isn’t that about the French Revolution or something?”

“Yes, they’re killing all the aristocrats. They’re mad at them because the king and his wife are rich and they don’t care that the peasants are starving, so the peasants want to kill all the aristocrats, whether they’ve done anything wrong or not. Do you know how they kill them?”

“Let me guess,” she says. “They cut off their heads with a thing with a big blade that drops down.”

“It’s called a guillotine. It was invented by a Dr. Guillotine. He was a Frenchman. They make them stick their heads through a hole and tie their hands behind their backs and then they let the blade drop down and wham! it slices off their heads.”

“Sounds divine,” she says. “I’ll be sure and add that book to my reading list.”

“They say it doesn’t hurt, but I don’t know how having your head cut off could not hurt.”

“Why don’t you try it some time and let me know?”

“I saw Daddy when I was walking to school today.”

“Where?”

“He drove past in a black car.”

“It must have been somebody else. His car is blue. Was it a new car?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can tell a new car from an old one, can’t you?”

“I think it was a new car.”

“Well, the next time you see him tell him to throw some of that money our way that he’s spending on a new car.”

“I wouldn’t ask him for money.”

“Why not? He’s your father, isn’t he? You wouldn’t be on this earth if it wasn’t for him, so he’s supposed to pay your way. That’s the way it works.”

He notices how many of his conversations with his mother always come around to the subject of money. He tries to steer her in another direction.

“Are you still looking for a job?” he asks.

“Off and on,” she says. “If it’s any of your business.”

“Do you want me to read the want ads to you? I’ll bet there are some good jobs in there.”

“If I wanted to read the want ads, don’t you think I could read them myself? You’re just a two-bit punk and you don’t know anything.”

“’You’re just a two-bit punk and you don’t know anything,’” he says, in exact imitation of her voice.

“You’re getting just a little too big for your britches!”

“’You’re getting just a little too big for your britches.’”

“Stop it!” she says.

“’Stop it!’”

“Don’t you know you’re driving me crazy?”

“’Don’t you know you’re driving me crazy?’”

“Do you want me to get up from here and come over there and slap you silly?”

“No, I don’t,” he says solemnly, using his own voice again.

“You remind me more of your father every day.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”

“Run away from home and join the circus. You could be one of their freaks.”

He knows she’s only teasing him, but remarks like that hurt him a little, he has to admit. It’s as if she doesn’t want him around her anymore.

“When I’m old enough, I’m going to join the navy.”

“Good for you,” she says. “Serve your country. See the world. Send me a postcard.”

A man and woman are kissing on the TV. Their noses are pressed together.

“Can we change channels?” he asks.

“No!” she says. “I’m watching this!”

He goes into the kitchen and gets an apple and goes out the back door with it and around the house and sits on the front steps, between the bushes that grow on both sides. He throws the apple up in the air a couple of times and catches it and then takes a bite out of it. The juice is running down his chin when he sees a black car pull up to the curb in front of the house, the same black car he saw that morning.

Somebody in the car motions to him. Fascinated, he stands up, throws down the apple, and crosses the lawn toward the car.

“Hello, son!” his father says brightly, rolling down the window.

“Did you get a new car?” he asks. He can’t think of anything else at the moment to say.

“No, it’s a friend’s car. I’m just borrowing it. How are you?”

“I’m all right. When are you coming home?”

His father turns off the engine and puts both hands on the steering wheel. “I’m not,” he says. “How’s your mother?”

“She’s fine.”

“Don’t tell her I was here.”

“All she has to do is look out the window and she’ll know you’re here.”

“Well, this is just between you and me.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out some money and hands his son a twenty-dollar bill. “Get yourself something good to eat,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Well, I just wanted to see you for a minute and see how you are. I’ve got to be going.” He reaches to start the engine again.

“Daddy, can I come and live with you?”

“No, I’m afraid that’s out the question right now. I’m staying with friends. We’ll talk about that later when I’m more settled.”

“Mother hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She loves you very much.”

“She’s crazy. She’s going to smoke herself to death and she doesn’t eat any food.”

“Well, she’s just going through a rough patch right now. You’ll understand when you’re older and not hold it against her.”

“I’m going to run away from home.”

“No, you’re not. You just stay put for now. We’ll talk more about a different kind of arrangement later, after things have settled down.”

He starts the engine and looks over his shoulder to see if any cars are coming. He makes a u-turn in the middle of the street and speeds off in the opposite direction from which he came with a little squeal of tires.

When Paul goes back into the house, his mother is waiting for him at the door.

“Who was that you were talking to?” she asks.

“Nobody. A man looking for the hospital.”

“That was a black car, wasn’t it?”

“I think it was.”

“Did he try to get you to get into the car with him?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you tell him how to get to the hospital?”

“I tried to.”

At ten o’clock that night his mother is still in front of the TV, but now she’s asleep with a bottle of gin on the table beside her. On the TV is a skinny old man in a tuxedo doing a tap dance in front of a wall of mirrors that reflect the people watching him.

He goes into his room and shuts the door, moving the bureau in front of the door so nobody can come in. He starts to work on his book report; writing it should be easy because he’s already read the book, but he can’t seem to concentrate. Luckily it’s not due for a few days.

He turns off the light, finding the dark comforting; it makes him feel safe. Far off in the distance he hears a siren. The wind is blowing against the house as if to blow up a rainstorm. He settles under the covers and sighs. The last thought he has before going to sleep is about the guillotine. He wonders if it really hurts or if it’s just like a whisper on the back of the neck. Of one thing, though, he is certain: He will never know for sure.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp 

by allen0997