An Ordinary Day – Short Story by Mark Read
Grief cuts deeper than glass in this quietly unraveling moment of memory and survival.
In An Ordinary Day by Mark Read, Floyd reaches for help that isn’t there—only to find himself staring down the weight of loss, blood, and a junk drawer full of ghosts. Read it now on Written Tales. Submissions are open if you’ve got a story that sticks.
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"Tear me off a hunk of duct tape!" The old man reached behind him, waiting for his wife, Wendy, to give him a strip. He enjoyed working with her, and it surprised him when his hand remained empty. The pieces of broken window glass shifted.
"Ow!"
Red dots appeared on the dusty windowsill, and the glass became slippery.
"Damn baby aspirin!"
Floyd shoved the dirty dinner plates aside and lowered the shards onto the table. More blood dripped from the cut.
A vision of Wendy on the mortician's gurney popped into his head. He swallowed to choke back tears.
She'd died last November. Why had he asked for her? Are you losing your mind, old man? Was he?
The wind whipped the nicotine-yellowed curtain like the arm of a grade schooler who really needed to use the bathroom.
Floyd tried to focus on the window. He searched for the roll of duct tape in the junk drawer, but it was nowhere to be found. Instead, he grabbed the blue painter's tape and four wrinkled "Trump 2020" bumper stickers and then wrapped an old paper napkin around his finger with painter's tape. It didn't look pretty, but it stopped the blood. He fitted the largest shard into the window and smoothed a bumper sticker over the crack. The other pieces were fastened to the first with the remaining stickers, and then he reinforced the window with strips of painter's tape until a spider's web of blue covered the gaps, stopping the curtain from swaying.
A picture of him with Wendy holding a fish hung in a gold frame to his right. It was taken on the Lochsa River at Post Office Creek while on their honeymoon. She was proud of that large Cutthroat Trout. A gray and white cat posed at the bottom of the photograph, its tail wrapped around his leg and its gaze fixed on the fish. He had no idea where it'd come from.
Wendy was very low maintenance. Sleeping under the stars, fishing, listening to running water, or the wind in the trees. It was all good as long as they were together. Floyd wiped his eyes and stared at the threadbare yellow shag carpet and brown paneling of the single-wide trailer. Gray water spots marred the ceiling, and cigarette burns and empty beer cans covered the floor. She didn't deserve this.
He ran his hand along his stubble-covered jaw and grabbed a beer. A hiss told him the chicken noodle soup he was warming had boiled over.
"Damn it!" He slid the pan to the side and switched it off.
Wendy wouldn't have let it get this dirty, but he didn't see the point of cleaning now that she was gone. The whole trailer court had gone to hell. Hill View Mobile Estates had been immaculate when they first moved in. Freshly painted trailers, mowed lawns, and white picket fences. The owner, Mr. Laird, gave you a stern talking-to if he thought you weren't keeping your place up. Now, all the old-timers were dead, the trailers were rundown, and the place was filled with drug dealers and welfare recipients.
Pop! Pop! Gunshots came from the trailer across the potholed gravel drive. Steve, Mindy's baby daddy, burst out of the old tan Broadmoor with a pistol, ran into the gravel drive, and kept running. Mindy stumbled after him, her cell phone in hand. She called for him to stop, but then collapsed on the cracked concrete sidewalk. Her five-year-old son, Stryker, ran from the trailer and called for help.
Drugs! There had been plenty of stoners in Floyd's day, but Meth and Fentanyl existed in a category of their own. He had seen Child Protective Services remove Stryker and Gillian, Mindy's two kids, and return them two or three times. It appeared they brought them back a little early this time. He hurried across the gravel drive, knelt by Mindy, and yelled for Stryker to go back inside. A red stain spread across the front of her shirt, and the faint sound of the 911 operator's voice came from the cellphone. He wadded her sweatshirt and pressed it against her wounds.
Mindy lifted her head and asked, "Why Steven?" Then she fell silent.
"Stay with me, Mindy," he urged. "Don't close your eyes. Think of your children." He picked up the phone, answered the operator's questions, and encouraged the single mother to stay conscious, pleading with the lady on the phone to hurry.
A faint siren sounded in the distance, followed by two more, but they were closer. He begged Mindy to keep her eyes open.
"Help is coming. Just hold on, please!"
The sirens converged on the trailer court, and a wave of first responders and police questions pushed him aside. Mindy's eyes were closed as he was forced away. The little girl and boy were taken to the police cars and eventually left with the same chubby woman in the green Ford from Child Protective Services who'd brought them back. Mindy's children were long gone when their mother was covered with a sheet and loaded into the back of a station wagon. Poor kids. They had lost both parents on the same day.
Stryker and Gillian's lives would never be the same. He grabbed a beer and shifted his gaze to the picture and the taped-up window.
A cat yowled. Mindy's gray-and-white cat, Esmerelda, stood on their worn wooden porch, complaining over an empty food bowl. It appeared to be lost. It was. Mindy was dead. Steve was going to prison, and the kids were in the green car with the woman. They wouldn't return this time.
Floyd didn't think he needed a cat, but couldn't leave it to fend for itself.
"Here, kitty, kitty," brought it to his screen door, and he let it in.
"How are you doing, Esmerelda?" A wrinkled bag of generic dry cat food sat on a dusty shelf. Wendy used it to feed the strays, saying it kept the mice down. He dumped what was left into a dirty blue bowl. The cat sniffed it and began to crunch.
"That's it, kitty. That's all I've got."
He tossed the empty bag toward the pile of trash in the corner. Floyd took the last beer and counted the days until his Social Security check was deposited. He slurped the soup from the pan, added it to the dirty dishes, and patted the cat on the head.
"Now. The cupboard is truly bare."
Everything blurred. For some reason, not being able to feed the cat troubled him. Floyd wiped his eyes and gazed at the picture. "I'm sorry, Wendy. I didn't want it to end this way, but the money has run out. I don't know how long I can continue without you."
He settled into his old recliner and took a drag from a cigarette. "I wish you were here."
Esmerelda jumped into his lap and gazed at the picture of the cat, the man, the woman, and the fish. She purred.
It was an ordinary day in his otherwise unremarkable life, another day without Wendy. He studied the cat and the earlier photo of himself and Wendy with the fish. Esmerelda had a gray spot on her side resembling the outline of the State of Idaho. The cat in the photo had the same patch of fur. Was the cat Esmerelda's long-dead relative? Or was Esmerelda the cat in the picture?
"Bah!"
It was just a coincidence! He didn't believe in any supernatural crap. Still. A cat that looked exactly like Esmeralda had appeared from nowhere on that isolated riverbank all those years ago. Floyd studied Wendy's smile and remembered the aroma of coffee, trout, and eggs fried over driftwood coals. Some fish would taste nice. Floyd gathered his pole and tackle box and looked at the cat. Worms were free if you dug them, and the Clearwater River was only a few blocks away. With luck, he'd catch enough for dinner.
"What do you think, Esmerelda?" he asked, placing his old straw hat on his head. "Would you like some fish?"
He recalled the adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish. Three garbage bags filled with crushed aluminum cans sat on the porch. Fortunately, the recycling center was located near the river, and the price was fifty-six cents per pound. He gazed at Wendy in the old photo while Esmerelda curled up in his recliner. He wasn't sure if he could afford eggs and coffee, but he could buy some pinto beans, a little bacon, toilet paper, and a half case of beer. Damn! The cat food! It was either beer or cat food. He couldn't afford both and knew Wendy would want him to get cat food. She'd like him to tidy up the place and do the dishes. Perhaps it wasn't an ordinary day after all, and maybe there was something special about that cat.
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✍️ About the Authors
Mark, a self-taught writer, dons the apron in the bustling kitchens of Washington State University, situated in the charming town of Pullman, WA. Alongside his remarkable wife, René, and their alluringly brilliant daughter, Alexandra, he finds solace in the company of their four delightful dachshunds, penning his tales with unwavering devotion and artistic flair.
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This is a poignant and realistic slice-of-life story that kept me reading. The coincidence of the similar cat was fascinating. Well done.