The Missing and Other Stories

...Beside him, to his right, lay the crumpled body of an American Lieutenant, a former platoon leader who carried a pocketful of dog tags and half written letters to parents who lost their sons, wives who had lost their husbands, children who would never see their father. Who would write his letter, he thought, as he foraged through the dead man's pockets for a cigarette? (Excerpt from The Foxhole)(story#3)

 The woods were still.

Moisture-laden leaves blanketed the hunter's path, cloaking his careful steps as he stalked his prey. Late autumn ushered in gray days. A gurgling brook wound down somber slopes to an open meadow. A purple haze settled on the surrounding hills where the season's first snow gathered in low hanging clouds.

   Odd, he thought. All summer long the deer bounded in abundance over the meadow and across the path tracking up the mud. Now, as if they knew instinctively that this was the first day of deer season, they had vanished...

...An uneasiness engulfed him as he contemplated his loneliness. It had been a year since he had lost Wendy. Each day without her seemed like a year, the past year, like a decade. Their brief time together had been fiery and passionate.

   He had never known anyone like her before, nor since. He doubted he ever would again. She told a few friends she had left him because he drank and was given to frequent fits of anger. He had exploded and struck her across the face with the back of his hand when he learned of her unfaithfulness. At best, he had attempted to control something already beyond his control. At worst, his reaction was the final straw. Wendy left him.

   The wind rattled the poplars behind him. It made him jumpy, and he begn to visualize the outline of his target in the woods. He stared at the shape that would never move, convincing himself with each passing second that what he saw was the coveted prize.

   The raw wind slapping his face, whipped up the flurries. Visability was increasingly more difficult. The shape had only been a tree or a shadow. Nothing. He was now cold and wet. He had lost hope of finding the young buck-the young buck he had stalked all morning. Nothing. Nothing. Maybe tomorrow...(Excerpt from The Prize)(story#15)

   Into a hole in the ice-covered river, he tumbled.  The current swiftly swept him far down-stream, and unable under the ice to resurface, six-year old Mikey Meadows drowned. (Excerpt from The Red Mitten)(story#1).

                  (Character sketch from Cider Falls, Maine)

                                     EMERY DOW

   Emery Dow, Cider Falls most eligible bachelor, swept into Daigle's Drugstore on Sunday for a cup of coffee and a gander at the morning newspaper. He glanced at the headlines and read more intently the sports pages for the latest hockey scores.

   Huddled in nearby booths, were several young ladies, who, all decked out in the latest fashions, were giggling, and thrilled at the very idea that Emery might look their way.  He paid no attention to them.

   As he flipped through the paper, his eyes were drawn to a photograph on page six. The accompanying story reported a horrible accident in which a speeding automobile overturned and burned, killing the young girl.

   From the photograph, she appeared to be quite beautiful, and the brief story disclosed that she was about his age. He lingered a long while, staring at the photo, wondering if their paths had ever crossed, perhaps at a party. Maybe their eyes had met on some busy city street, or they had brushed against one another in a crowded elevator?

   Perhaps, he thought, if he had met her at a party, he would have asked her to dance, or go to a movie, or for a long walk in the park. Maybe she would have been the ONE, someone with whom to share things, someone to talk to, someone to love. But Fate had other plans.  Then he turned the page to read the funnies. 

THE MISSING:  (Mandatory reading for all teachers and substitute teachers the world over. Sorry, no preview. Your homework assignment requires you purchase the book. There will be a quiz on Thursday. Thanks).