Daily Writing Exercise, 750Words.com
Fiction by Jason Edwards
She keeps thinking she’s forgotten something, and then she remembers that what she’s forgotten is to remember that she hasn’t forgotten anything this time. And she’s usually so forgetful. Then she tries not to think about it because the light turns green and she doesn’t want to kill anyone by accident.
Not by accident.
In her red car. The dealer had said “Red? You know the cops pull over drivers in red cars more often.” She’d replied with something about red hiding the blood. He’d laughed. She’d kept him in the trunk for a week before she’d remembered.
She’s killed a lot. A lot a lot. So much that she’s lost count, it’s beyond counting, way beyond there ever having been a first one or a first time. Might as well recall the first time one saw a tree. Sure, in the desert, your first tree must be a sight to behold. But in a forest? Its only trees.
Pointless to talk about. She just does it. Drives to a motel, goes to the front desk, asks for a room, takes the key, kills the woman behind the desk, stuffs her into a closet. Goes to bed and goes to sleep. Wakes up. Something about checking out?
Or: drives to a hotel. Goes to the front desks, asks for a room, takes the key card. Goes to bed, wakes up, call downs for fresh towels. When the maid arrives, kills her, stuffs her into a closet. Takes a shower. Uses, like, every towel on the cart.
DNA? Please. This is real life, not an episode of a television show.
Another red light, so she remembers to stop. Is that what she forgot? To stop at the last red light? That time in Ann Arbor. Ran a stop light, got pulled over. The police officer had said, do you know why I pulled you over? She’d said something about the color red, and when he’d walked back to his cruiser, she’d ran over him. Stuffed him in his own trunk. Had to go back a few hours later because she’d forgotten about the camera mounted on his dashboard.
A hoot and a holler. An actual wolf whistle. Two guys in the car next to her. It’s a black car, filthy. Black cars always get dirtier than white ones. “Where you headed, little girl?” The one shouts. The driver’s leering at her too. She says something about Grandma’s house. They laugh. She laughs. The light turns green. They accelerate, she accelerates, she clips their bumper, speeds up and passes them. They give chase. They drive deep into the forest of the city.
It’s not always this easy. Sometimes it’s everything she can do to lure someone to a secluded area. Not that it has to be secluded. She’s forgotten how many people she’s put a knife into, in restaurants, fast food joints, convenience stores. But those places sometimes don’t have closets or trunks. At least in this alley, when she’s done with them, she can stuff them into their own trunk.
She thinks about stuffing the good looking one, the one who wasn’t driving, into her own trunk. Then she has a bad moment- has she forgotten that there’s someone in there already? She could go check. She’s covered in their blood, a little of her own. If there’s already someone in there, she’ll be very disappointed in herself. For having forgotten.
She decides she won’t check. She stuffs them into their own trunk, along with her bloody clothes. Fetches distilled water out of her back seat, has a nice shadow bath there in the alley. Gets dressed in fresh underwear, jeans, a t-shirt with a gas-station logo on it. That poor old man, who had smiled at her sweetly when she’d gone in to pay for gas, saw the shirts, knew she’d need a pile, put a knife through him, stuffed him into a supply closet. After a while, you can really tell the difference between different brands of disinfectant, in jars and bottles and cans.
Back in her red car, she drives around the city, towards suburbs, towards Grandma’s house. That part was true. But then she remembers: she’s always told the truth. Always. Because why not. A lie takes effort, energy, invention, fabrication, creation. She has no interest in creating anything. That one guy in Texas. Those hands. The bruises on her ribs when she’d been on top of him, choking him. And then nausea and sore breasts and clean underwear. And utter depression.
They don’t do abortions in Texas. But she does.