Test day had arrived. Paul entered the arena with overwhelming trepidation. Failure today would mean death.

In any case, he looked forward to graduating to middle school.

He begins the search casually, with a measure of optimism, fully expecting it won’t be difficult to find, but with every crossed-out possibility his equanimity lessens, as he goes from pocket to pocket in all his jackets, even jackets that haven’t been worn in years just to be sure, and finally to the pockets of his man-purse–the one she always mocked him for–until he’s all out of pockets, and then it’s to his Range Rover, where he looks methodically from back to front so that he’s really beginning to panic because all he finds are stale fries and dog hair and a few drops of blood, which are all attributable to her and he needs to clean up soon, but there’ll be no point in cleaning if he can’t find it, and now he begins retracing every stop of the last six hours, first to the ATM that is supposed to be his alibi, but there’s nothing in the parking lot, and then to the dumpster in the industrial park that was a really stupid place to put her bag but it’s too late now, and in any case, it isn’t there either and now he’s driving to the waterfront and he’s nervous because it seems like those headlights in the rearview mirror are following him despite his driving so slow and steady because it would be really bad if he gets pulled over when he hasn’t washed the blood and he’s still wearing the same clothes and the car is speeding up and its lights are flashing and oh my God it’s the cops, so he thinks about speeding up too but that never works and he best play it cool and he’s just about to ask what seems to be the problem officer when the cop demands to know why there’s a handgun on the top of his car.

Today’s story is a deviation from the 100 word format. Instead, as you probably already noticed, this is a one sentence story, a concept first introduced to me by Matthew Bennardo. It turns out they are quite addictive, and the thrill comes in trying to make them as long as possible before they collapse in upon themselves, much like a house of cards (I was going to say a game of Jenga, but the analogy doesn’t really work.

“Tell me what happened.”

“So do you want to get married?”

Part Eight

Dave looked at the dead body and expected a measure of remorse that never materialized. He realized the man’s death had been completely warranted.

In this case, the pile of overdue library books stacked high in the corner gave Dave all the reason he needed to kill Mr. O’Leary.

In my visit to the pharmaceuticals factory, I discovered that there was no black dot serial killer. The black dots themselves were the murderer. It was a virus that was being manufactured as a biological weapon and it had somehow leaked out of one of the containment units.

In the end, I died alone.

Every victim of the past month had been found with the same black dot tattooed to his or her forehead. We reported it to all the usual departments, thinking we must have a serial killer or cult on our hands. But each of the deaths appeared random, with a variety of causes and nothing linking them together.

The captain was mad at me so I was assigned the desk, going through all the case files. I was the one who discovered the connection, that all the victims had visited a certain pharmaceuticals factory on the east side before their deaths.

In the manner of all bloated bureaucracies, responsibility for the mistake was passed from desk to desk like a 12-year-old orphan moves through foster homes. Everyone knew it was a fireable offense and so the smart tactic was to duck under the nearest mound of paperwork whenever the department head glanced over. Eventually some new crisis would strike a floor or two above, and they’d all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Of course that left Brenda on the hook again. As PR manager, it was her job to explain how a toaster oven had murdered a family of five.

She was forced to curtsy from a young age. The Queen required the girl to bow with the proper technique, and when she failed, the punishments were severe. The monks were called upon to drill her at all hours, contorting her body with their chaste hands until the proper form was hammered into her forever.

For her part, she deserved all the harsh treatment as she was particularly recalcitrant. She denied the Queen’s authority and would have gladly ripped out the queen’s eyes or stabbed her with the crown. She would never forgive the Queen for murdering her father.

Caspar would hear the whispers as soon as he closed his eyes. At first they seemed related to his dreams, but gradually they became detached, having nothing to do with his REM cycles.

You see, God was whispering to the jurors as well.

Davis was a photojournalist, famous for his true crime pictorials depicting all manner of depravities, including gruesome murders and violent assaults. He won Pulitzers and was the only photographer regularly on the best sellers’ list.

Davis was eventually released. He had not actually committed the crimes. Rather, he knew the people who had and went along to document them. People still believed it a disgrace, but that didn’t stop them from buying his books.