The lucky guy

Today is Tuesday and it’s Fandango’s 80th Story Starter. He provides the start, and the rest is up to us.

Once his dream of a life together with her faded as he realized that his love for her was unrequited, he knew he had to …

… kill her.

It was like Audrey all over again. Oh, Barry, I love you so much. I want to spend my life with you and everything is hearts and flowers until he’s sitting at McDonald’s one evening after work just finishing off a Big Mac when he sees her walk in hanging all over some lumbering goofball of a guy.

So my Mac’s not big enough, huh, Audrey?

And now Brenda was doing the same thing. He could only listen to Take it on the Run for so long before he decided he had to do something. But what? How?

He had taken care of Audrey with her crafting scissors. It was a night about two weeks after McDonald’s when he moved her sewing basket out of the den. When she asked where it was, he said that he saw it in the bedroom and he offered to get it for her.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Audrey said.

Entering the den with the sewing basket in his left hand he held up the scissors in his right hand and smiled.

“Found them,” he said.

“Such a sweetheart,” she said.

He walked toward Audrey with his arm outstretched and just as she was about to take the scissors he pretended to trip and as he fell into her, he guided the knife deep into her heart.

“Her cheating heart,” he thought.

He was arrested and released that night pending trial. He wasn’t convicted despite the best attempts of the prosecutor.

“But your Honor,” the prosecutor said.

“He slipped, counselor.”

“He slipped 48 times?”

“Many people have balance problems. Let it go.”

“But—”

“The defendant is free to go with an admonishment to not, under any circumstances, run or walk with scissors again.”

So here he was three years later in the same situation. A cheating girlfriend and a broken heart.

That was his thought as the clock approached one a.m. and he was unable to sleep. He looked over at Brenda and asked himself if he could get away with it again, but he knew the odds were against him. He got out of bed and quietly got dressed. He tiptoed down the stairs and made some toast while he thought it through. Finished eating, he put in his earbuds and brought up some music on his phone. He walked toward the front door. He lit a cigarette and opened the front door. I’ll just walk away, he thought. I’ll take the high ground.

Feeling lighter with his decision he smiled as he held the matchbook up to his cigarette and watched the matches burst into flame. He dropped the burning matches on the blue wingback accent chair next to the front door. He walked down the front walk to the sidewalk and headed left toward downtown while the Talking Heads’ Burning Down the House echoed through the earbuds.

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(This was not a true story.)