The Most Important Thing Happening by Mark Steele

Author:Mark Steele
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Parables, Mystery, Gospel
Publisher: David C Cook
Published: 2012-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

—You are as complicit in this as I am!

—Now, hold on, Wit protested.—You just asked me to get you the keys. You didn’t tell me you were going to shoot Colin!

—I didn’t shoot him, Froman protested on the phone. —I just wrote the words down on the page that said the security guard did it.

—It’s the same thing!

—Yes, Wit. It’s the same thing as you giving me the keys to open the box. It all led to the same conclusion. Each action has an ultimate reaction and it is often more costly or painful than we had anticipated. It’s why I’m hiding. Details evolve unexpectedly. For instance, how was I supposed to know it wouldn’t kill Colin? How was I supposed to know the bullets weren’t real?

—You didn’t know?! Wit was aghast. —Didn’t you read ahead?!

—It’s complicated. Every time, he scatters the pages and I always pick up a different one. This is the first time I was able to get actual bullets in him, so I guess I should be thankful for small victories.

—Wait a second. What do you mean “every time?”

Froman laughed out loud on the other end of the cell phone. A less sinister laugh than Wit would have expected from a snake that eats its own tail.—Are you really that thick?

—I beg your pardon?

—Oh, no pardons forthcoming. You really don’t see it?

—See what?!

—There is nothing new in this enormous glass box, my man. You and your friends have lived this single hellhole of a day over and over ad infinitum. You never remember. But, Colin and I, we remember. Boy, do we ever. And that fella has got a tenacity you wouldn’t believe. Sometimes, I’d like to take a carrot peeler to that voluptuous top lip of his and—

—The story—our story—it changes?

—Well, the details, sure. But, it always ends the same.

—

—That’s a little too much dead silence for my taste, Wit. What’s rolling around in that noggin of yours?

—Whose ending wins?

—Pardon?

—If the story always ends the same, whose ending has always won: yours or his?

—If you wanted to know that, you shouldn’t have lost the last page.

—Do I always help you? DO I?!

—Let me put it this way. You don’t always intend to.

Again with the laugh.

—I’m sorry! I don’t mean to be snarky, but you’re so predictable. You’re aiming your flaring nostrils at the wrong target. I would blame your lack of backstory. You’re a bit thin, don’t you think?

—At least I have enough sense to not think I can hide.

—Pardon?

—Oh, no pardons forthcoming.

The door to the bathroom burst open. Colin was on Froman like hydrogen peroxide on a cotton swab. Froman barely had time to squeak out —How did you find me?!

Wit replied—I just read the next page.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.