Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: COMPUTER (05/19/16)
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TITLE: Catharis | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gary Ritter
05/23/16 -
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The line at the busy intersection had stalled while a funeral procession passed. That was all the opportunity this man needed to target her. He sprayed liquid on her windshield, grinned at her through brown-stained teeth, and began wiping away the fluid.
She glanced at her two children safely buckled in their car seats in the rear and leaned her head out the window. “Listen, you don’t have to do that. Really, I don’t want my windshield cleaned.”
It was like he never heard her—just kept on with his job. Jessie sighed and gritted her teeth. It was these kinds of obnoxious incidents in the big city that made her dream of living in the country. “Look at the man cleaning the glass, kids.” Might as well make the most of it. Her twins, Cherie and Patrick, age six, giggled.
The car ahead inched up, leaving a healthy gap. She got antsy waiting and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. Finally. The man came around to her side with his hand out. Mumbling under her breath, she dug in her purse. Finding a dollar she turned to give it to him, when…WHAM!
Her head snapped to the side at the vicious blow of his fist. Through a haze Jessie watched him open the car door and unbuckle her seat belt. He pushed her aside to climb behind the wheel. Gunning the engine, he spun onto the shoulder, bypassing the other cars. At the intersection he hit the gas and sped through a gap in traffic.
Jessie moaned. In a rough voice the man warned her, “Don’t even think of trying anything.”
Patrick started fussing. “Momma, I gotta go potty.”
Her head hurt where he’d hit her. “What are you going to do with us?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The implied threat chilled her. It was one thing to consider her own safety; quite another thinking about her precious children.
“Why don’t you just let us out? I won’t make any trouble for you.”
He flicked out a hand and smacked her face. “Shut up.”
After maneuvering through a number of lights the man steered onto the expressway, picking up speed to enter the flow of traffic. Jessie felt dazed, helpless…until she remembered.
She reached for her purse. “Want some gum?”
When he ignored her she removed the .38 Special and with both hands steady leveled it at the driver. “Stop the car, mister. Now.”
His mouth opened and clamped shut. The vehicle decelerated. Just as he pulled off the road, he lashed out. He clipped the barrel of the gun, but Jessie hung on. In the next instant she fired.
The twins began crying at the explosion. Jessie’s ears rang. The carjacker yelled in pain and slumped in his seat, blood flowing from his shoulder. Jessie yanked the car into park and pulled the keys. She opened her car door, keeping the pistol centered on the man while she fumbled for her cell phone. Within minutes of her 911 call, three police cruisers arrived to take her attacker away.
She hugged her children, thankful for the providence and preparation in her life.
***
I leaned back from my computer. How cathartic it was to write these little stories of my heroic daughter. Vignettes of a life never lived.
The guilt of my aborting Jessie had plagued me for years. I had no one to tell. Phil had fled at the news of my pregnancy, leaving me all alone. Over time the weight of my act had accumulated and made me sick.
It was only when I read an article about writing as a means of relieving one’s burden in life that I thought about it for myself. I took some classes; bought a computer. What a gift from heaven! Who would think that a keyboard and monitor could save me?
The child whose life I destroyed had become my heroine, a mother herself. Three lives that never would be, yet were, as I spun tales about them.
I yearned to go back in time to make a different choice. Barring the impossible, I did the feasible.
***
Jessie stood on the logging road facing the huge truck rumbling toward her…
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