A Story
By Chris Yealy
A little thing I did for English class, had to write some fiction using some characters from the books we
read.
Willy wiped the sweat from his brow and put his pants back on. It was a hard night ,
but he had earned his pay. His feet were covered in the skin and juices of his victims. (Note:
I should have bet someone I could open a story with that paragraph...)
"You really botched that batch, Bill," said Mr. Frauk, the owner, as Willy washed his
feet. "I'm afraid we don't need your help at Frauk Wineries (Inc.) anymore; I'm going to have to let you go."
"I really need the money though...," said Willy.
"Sorry, Bill. You're fired, clean out your cubby hole and skedaddle."
"But, but, but...."
"Don't make me call security, Bill."
With his head hanging, Willy walked out of Frauk Wineries (Inc.) forever. The
highway in front of the winery was well lit and he could see a half mile in each direction. Willy wasn't interested
in the view tonight; he only wanted to go to bed. It was 3 a.m.; no need to worry about traffic.
Robert Frost (a woman, not entirely unlike the writer) was rocketing down Winery
Way with a mission. Her friend at the unemployment office had informed her that Willy Loman's latest spectacular
failure was to be at Frauk Wineries (Inc.). Robert thought that, since it was Willy's second day at the winery, he
would have been fired by now and in a sufficiently sulky mood to injure with an automobile without him minding too
much. As she had seen in the past, when Willy loses a job, he usually becomes depressed and prays for Death to take
him away from it all; this time, she was to be his Angel (of Death, that is). And so, without so much as a glance
toward his saviour (oooh, just noticed some pronoun/subject disagreement here...),
Robert's '98 Dodge (a tinge of irony there) Viper and Willy's left knee attempted to occupy the same coordinates in
space-time and failed. With a grotesquely satisfying (at least for all parties involved)
"thump-crunch-ah!-tumble-thump-groan-gurgle," Willy Loman's life was brutally and thankfully ended at the age of
seventy years, four months, twenty-two days, ten hours, seven minutes, and thirty-four seconds. Robert drove on for
another hundred feet, executed an emergency-brake U-turn, and parked beside Willy's newly created corpse. She kept
the car running and rummaged through his pockets until she found his wallet. She was only interested in his
driver's license but decided to snoop around anyway. Robert pocketed the license and another card, proclaiming
Willy to be a member of the Communist party, which she had not planned to find. Besides those two items, his wallet
included several matchbooks from various hotels, $1.24, a rather large moth, a bit of lint, and a list titled "Cool
things to name my children," which looked to have weather, nay fought in, both World Wars. The list included
impressive names like "Biff," "Q-Bert," "Happy," "Dopey," "Maximillian," "Marjorie," "Patsy," and "Captain Parachute
Pants." After reading the list, Robert could only feel more sorry for him, and put five bucks in Willy's wallet
before putting it back in his pants.
Robert sped along the road back to her house feeling a little scared. She was
not worried about the police jailing her for Willy's death (actually, she would have been in more trouble for
speeding than killing him); she was worried about being "it." Robert knew the rules of the game, and she knew that
the night's events would make her the hunted. She remembered the conversation that put her in the game five years
ago, at a party thrown by her friends that had gotten a bit out of control and a bit over the original list of
attendees.
"Wanna play a game?" asked a man with pencil-thin eyebrows and a marker-thin
smile, who had tapped her on the shoulder with a rusty knife.
"Sure," she replied. She had nothing to do, and did not enjoy parties as a
general rule, so anything to get her mind off the "celebration" would have been a welcome distraction.
"I'll give you the information soon," he said with a serpentine hiss and slinked
away. A few minutes later, he came back and asked, "I'm sorry, could I have your name and mailing address?"
Then, just four to six weeks later, she became involved in a game that would
engulf her life. The rules of the game cannot be stated here, lest the reader become a participant. Time to get
back to the real story though. As previously stated, she was now the hunted in the sick game of literary homicide
she played. Robert's only hope was to get another player before they got her. One rule that can be said freely is
that the act of killing a player acts as a toggle for "it" status, and Robert's toggle was in the on position.
Tires squealed as Robert hit the brakes, changed her mind, and subsequently her
direction, and swung the wheel toward Janie's place. Janie entered the game around the same time as Robert; in
fact, she was recruited at the same party. However, Janie didn't allow the game to change her as it had changed
Robert. Janie still had a job and a family, whereas Robert only had tools and competitors. Robert would have said,
"Why enter a game if you don't plan on playing to win?" Truth is, Janie was young and naïve; she only stayed "it"
and alive because she tried the whole killing thing only once, didn't acquire a taste for it, and all but dropped
out of the game. Everyone but Robert ignored Janie because she was too easy a target and there was no thrill to the
hunt. Janie considered herself out of the game because she did not participate, but, as Robert was to show her,
there is only one way out of this game.
The End
I may be able to expand it some day, but as it is, I kinda story-told myself into a corner, and am not motivated to
pursue this project.