Flash Fiction by Andy Betz
As a child of six, I played with my much older brother and sister (17 and 16 respectively). I learned much a six-year-old should never know as a six-year-old. That spring, my brother and his girlfriend began fighting. My sister told me it began with trust issues so common to teenagers and escalated each day. He found her at the movies with another football player. She caught him flirting with a cheerleader. He said something he regretted. She gave him back his ring. From then on, they became vindictive.
How vindictive?
My sister told me my brother found a pillowcase his girlfriend embroidered and took a pair of scissors to it, shredding it, and then taking it to the park to burn the case using a public grill. She told me he was so mad and found his outlet (for his anger) on this one personal item he used to treasure. I was home learning how to play canasta with my sister when I heard him cutting the pillowcase and then stormed out the back door in a fit of rage.
My sister testified to that fact to the police the next day.
As did I.
Nineteen years later, I am a paramedic, working a variety of calls, all with the word, “gruesome” as the common denominator. It is what I do for a living and I am good at what I do.
Especially last night.
Last night, I witnessed an innocent person receive multiple stab wounds from a jealous husband. The police told me to wait and watch.
I wish I had not.
Not because I had never seen a person attacked and die. Rather because, I now saw someone repeatedly stabbed and actually heard the sound of the stab at the same time.
A very distinctive sound a six-year-old never forgets.
My sister and brother will not take my calls anymore.
And that is alright by me.
Bio: The works of Andy Betz are found everywhere a search engine operates. Andy has written many great things that have been posted to The Yard: Crime Blog, including, “Water” with Jaysa Brown, “The Less You Have, the More It Hurts To Lose It”, “I Knew Her as Tigist“, “How My New Life Began“, “Et Tu“, “Senny” with Dounia Saunders, “Oleander“, “The Best Advice I Ever Got“, “If I Ask Your Opinion“, “As the Sun Sets“, “Walter,” “The Saddest Lies“, “By Morning”, “Nicole and Julia: Death at Poolside”, “Julia and Katherine”, “The Caretaker”, “The Carlton Theater” with Samantha Fowler, “minus“, “Starting Over Again“, “What I’ve Learned Watching Murder“, “Today’s Lecture“, “I Knew Her as Gracie” , and “What the Reader Read”. He has also been interviewed.
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