Josh Jackson Author

You may be familiar with the writing format of short stories which take one, three, or five minutes to read. It’s a fun writing exercise and a challenging one at that. My local library even has one of those machines which prints a long thermal receipt with either a one, three, or five-minute story printed on it, for free. Local writers could submit a story for the machine but there’s no guarantee of publication, and no payment. Plus, you have to sign up for yet another account just to submit, which of course serves only to collect and sell your data. No thanks!

I wanted to try out this story format. Since I have my own place to publish, and for free, I’m happy to share with not just my local library patrons, but you and the whole world, these little stories. I really enjoyed the challenge of fitting into these tiny spaces. If you’re a writer, or even if you’re not, I recommend giving one, three, five-minute stories a try.

So, here’s what my local library missed out on. Enjoy!

Note: the average reading speed is about 180 words per minute.

——

ONE MINUTE

“Trust Issues“

“Downloading 60 Seconds remaining” said the notification.

This file was… this data could…

Trust is… kind of everything. But it’s earned, not given. One cannot expect every last person they meet to trust them. Or even respect them. I mean… you’ve just met. You’ve had zero time to gain or lose respect.

Janie gave me at least 12 months of union. Time enough to earn respect, trust. But I’d automatically trusted her, assuming she’d do the same. No.

“… 45 seconds remaining” it said. Soon. Soon what we’d had would be shattered. More than a year, just shot. Hell, early on it was easy to trust each other, to respect our choices in friends or companions. But things happen.

“…15 seconds remaining” as always the estimate is wrong. Rushing ahead of itself. Like we’d done. Janie never suggested we were rushing into it. I didn’t either. The signs though, the signs were… there. We ignored them.

“…5 seconds remaining“

“Download complete“

And with the proof she’d provided -of my cheating and her fidelity- our marriage was done downloading as well.

——

THREE MINUTE

“The Things We Do for Love“

“It’s never a good idea to mix business with pleasure,” my boss was saying.

My mind had wandered. This unexpected meeting -an employee review disguised as a meeting- instantly triggered a stress reaction. I couldn’t concentrate. Images of me filling a cardboard box with the contents of my desk. Walking out of the building with a security guard at my back. My palms dampened.

“We generally frown on interoffice relationships,” she continued. “As you know from the Employee Manual.” I couldn’t read her face. A mask of seriousness, no indication of what she really thought.

“I understand.” I mumbled. It was hard to meet her gaze, fixed on me. Direct eye contact. Like lasers, cutting right through any lies I would consider. Destroying any argument I could make on my own behalf. I had no defenses. I was caught.

“Well, this is not the end of the world. We’ll have to follow the procedures and see if we can’t resolve this quickly and easily. But the fact of the matter is, the two of you can no longer see each other as long as you both are employees here.”

Break up, walk out, or be fired. So much for the romanticism of two coworkers falling in love. If we’d only been able to keep it secret. Right. Like everyone in the whole office couldn’t see we were totally into each other. It was hardly secret, not that we’d really tried to keep it one.

“I don’t think either of us want to quit…” I tried. But we don’t want to quit each other, I thought.

“You simply cannot have this relationship. It’s against the rules. If you worked in unrelated departments, it could have been overlooked or maybe tolerated, but you both share the same office. The first time you have a fight it’ll spill into the breakroom, the boardroom, and the bullpen. You know full well it will disrupt the workplace. This could hurt our team. People take sides. I’m sorry, but this cannot continue.”

I looked at my hands. Only this morning they’d been wrapped around his body, as we embraced and kissed before heading out the door to come here. To work. Where I was about to be fired. My mind drifted again, my boss saying something about company policies.

Is what he and I have worth this? Can my career, already bumping against a glass ceiling, handle a firing on my resume? It’d be slightly better if I simply quit. But a future employer would ask the hard question. Why did you walk?

If I said, “for love” they’d never take me seriously. If I euphemized and said “disagreement with managerial style” they’d never trust me. This was impossible.

“Well, I’d like to hear from you. What do you think will be the best approach here?” my boss demanded. I looked up. Finally meeting her eyes. She glowered at me. It felt like a high stakes poker game. I realized I was sweating everywhere, my armpits and palms damp. Heart thumping.

I took in a breath, held it a moment, and made my choice as I spoke that breath.

The things we do for love.

——

FIVE MINUTE

“Consider This a Divorce“

“Get out get out get out!” she screamed. He backed toward the door already. His feet moved faster as their eyes stayed locked.

“I’m so sorry-” he tried to say, but she cut him off again with the repeated demand.

He backed into the door, the knob jabbing his hip. He blindly reached for it as she advanced on him, still screaming.

“GET THE FUCK OUT!” she bellowed only a foot from his face.

“I am, I am!” he said, twisting the knob. She backed off, moved quickly to the kitchen drawers. Grabbing items out and immediately throwing them at him. Spatula, egg beater, wooden spoon. At least it was small utensils. She wasn’t aiming, just frantically chucking things toward him and the door.

The knob released and he turned and yanked the door open, bolting through as a wooden spatula and then a Microplane went past his shoulder and head. He ran across the deck into the backyard.

Damn, where to go? Around the house. Get away. She was still screaming, and the clatter of kitchen items got louder.

As he looked left and right to decide which side of the house to run around, she came out of the doorway with a cast iron skillet in her hand.

His eyes widened, hers narrowed, and she practically leapt from the deck at him. He dodged left, scampering for the side of the house and hopefully escape.

As he rounded the corner, dismay. A fence, no gate. He practically crashed into it. Grabbing at the top rail to start hoisting himself over. As he pulled up, a glimpse of his car parked on the street. Almost there!

Then the world when briefly white and massive pain erupted across the back of his head. Suddenly he lay on his back, stars floating across his vision, and she stood over him, panting and still wielding the cast iron.

He raised his arms feebly in front of his face, hoping to protect himself from another heavy blow. The first one left him spinning, dizzy, weak, woozy, seemingly halfway to unconsciousness.

“You sonofa-fucking-bitch!” she seethed in his face, bending over to spit in his eyes. “Why would you ever?”

“I didn’t mean to, please, it wasn’t my fault!” he tried. She raised the pan, winding up for another skull smash. He squinted, turned his head slightly. Nothing.

“Fuck this. Fuck you. We’re done.”

She moved away. He gently reached to the back of his head to assess the wound. Soft, wet, slimy. Something sharp. Bone? He had to get up, get away, before she decided to come back with something even more lethal than a hunk of iron.

He tried to turn onto his side but the pain only intensified. A slow process of moving one arm, one hand, then a leg. Then the other. By the time he turned onto his side the nausea worsened, he became even dizzier than ever and desperately wanted to simply puke and close his eyes for a while.

No no. Can’t fall asleep. Concussion. Head injury. Need help.

Then she did come back. On his side he could only see feet and lower legs. Trying to move his eyes upward caused spinning and sharp head pain. What next? Was she going to help him, having grasped that she’d actually severely injured him?

Hands grabbed his wrists. She heaved, dragging him back away from the fence. It seemed like a lot of effort on her part, but she got him moved anyway. He realized from the view that she’d brought him back to the edge of the deck, the kitchen door open still. Sun, blue sky. A lawnmower humming a few houses away. Had anyone even noticed what just happened?

Apparently not.

“This is your fault. You’ve had this coming. You did this.”

He heard something that sounded like metal scraping, then a thud. Scrape, thud. On his back again, he desperately forced his head to turn toward the sound. There she stood, right in the middle of the flowerbed, digging up her once-revered and carefully tended garden. Was she– she couldn’t– but then… it was plain.

Grave digging.

No no no no! He panicked, adrenaline pouring out of his glands. Suddenly he found some strength. Some energy to move. He managed to get back onto his side, hoping to get onto his hands and knees at the least.

She heard his grunts of efforts and moans of pain. Her hate-filled eyes, her deeply scowling brow, her downturned mouth, all aimed right at him.

“Uh-uh, asshole. Nice try.” She strode over to him, holding the shovel.

“Please, I don’t want to die. Please don’t.”

She raised the shovel above her head, then glanced at it, hefted it, checking the weight. Then lowered it.

“On second thought…” she said, walking out of his field of view, thumping across the deck and back into the kitchen.

A few seconds later she thumped back across the planks and to his side. He could see her feet, and tried to look up to see what was coming next. The effort made electrical bolts of pain rage across his entire head. His view increased to only the level of her knees, but it was all he needed to see what she’d gone back to the kitchen for. His blood still dripped from it.

“They say divorce is expensive, but this pan only cost twenty dollars.”

It was the last thing she ever said to her husband.