Little Momma left them in June.
Most days they dropped by, concerned she might miss them.
They quit work.
They listened hard; softly too.
”Hold to thy faith,” intoned Pastor Paul.
Clarence stared at the new earth and gave thanks.
He returned to her car and took out a spade.
Once again, I find that text tales are easy on a smartphone! I enjoyed this one, deciding to make it ever so slightly ‘Southern Gothic’ thus changing ‘Reverend Paul to ‘Pastor Paul’ to keep the Southern spirit in mind!
I also ‘borrowed’ the verb ‘intoned’ from Mansfield’s Daughters of the Late Colonel as there is something piously assured about such a verb! The debate between whether it should be ‘miss’ or ‘cold’ in the second line reflected my concern with clues and when to release them. If the line had read: ‘concerned she might be cold’ then perhaps death would have been too apparent to the reader and I preferred ‘stared’ to ‘gazed’ because the alliterative echo of ‘gazed’ and gave’ seemed a little overcooked. Once again, the ‘thrift’ of the short tale proved great fun and a challenge. ‘His’ car or ‘hers’..decisions go on!
