By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
With the publication of our fifth annual 208 Fiction winners and honorable mentions in this edition (see Pages 14-16), I thought I’d share one of my own short stories. I discovered this single-page, typewritten story that I wrote 20 years ago in my archives while moving this summer. I wrote it after a friend experienced a tragedy in their life.
T
he dryer ticked loudly with the sound of those snap-button shirts Del wore. June stared ahead while loading the washer. Her lithe fingers picked through the dishrags and bath towels until she unfolded the onesie and froze. It was crumpled next to a pair of Del’s jeans, no bigger than a game hen, the words still written in puffy paint across the front: Coming soon!
She sagged against the wall of the laundry room, the onesie in her dropped hand. Tears welled in her brown eyes and her other arm cradled her stomach.
Sounds of applause came from the other room and Del grunted with approval at something he saw on TV.
June brought the item to her nose, her sobs muffled by the soft fabric. The dryer kept turning round. Del grabbed another handful of chips. A truck downshifted on the highway.
It never stops, she thought. The sobs came harder, leaking through the fabric like a failing levee.
“You all right in there, hon?” Del asked the ceiling, chip in hand.
“Fine, I’m fine,” she gasped.
Del muted the game show, placed the chips back in the bowl and rose from the recliner with a grunt. The dogs came and ate the crumbs that fell from his lap.
“Honey?” he walked into the laundry room and found her slumped against the shelf of canned goods opposite the washer and dryer. “What is it? Did you hurt yourself? Honey?”
She turned and pointed to the hamper where she’d dropped the pink fabric. Del looked down and saw the object, sagging as if someone had placed a heavy load on his shoulders. He reached down and picked it up, the onesie tiny in his blackened mechanic’s hands.
“How did it get in there?” Del asked finally. The back of June’s head just wobbled back and forth.
He laid his hand on her shoulder and she shrank from the touch. She stumbled over the hamper and ran to the bedroom, her sobs attenuated through the closed door.
Del looked down at the onesie again, his thick fingers tracing along the words, Coming soon! The dyer kept turning those snap buttons around and a car without a muffler revved at the stop sign and sped off.
He folded the fabric neatly into a square and carried it into the living room with both hands, palms up. People on the television jumped up and down in muted celebration, but Del no longer watched them.
He walked to the fireplace and cranked open the cast-iron door. The noise carried into June’s room and, a moment later, she cracked open the bedroom door and peered through from the darkness.
The firelight flickered in Del’s eyes. He searched the flames, fingering the item absently.
June brought the door open more and padded her bare feet into the living room. She stood behind Del, watching as his head bowed to the onesie and his chest heaved with a few sobs of his own.
Del heard her standing there, but didn’t turn around. He held the folded square of pink fabric, soft as felt and cool to the touch, then placed it in the bright, burning center of the fire. The backs of his hands screamed in pain and June’s breath caught behind him.
Only when he began to feel the searing pain on his fingers did Del drop the item into the flames and withdraw his hands. The fabric turned black as the fire ate it ingloriously, until it was just another pile of ashes.
June stepped forward and rested her hand on Del’s shoulder, the pair exhaling together. They knelt before the warmth of the fire, hating its glow, but afraid to turn away.
