National Public Radio’s Three Minute Fiction contest. I’m still determined to get an honorable mention…some day…but not this day. Round eight was not it alas. But as I always do, I’m posting my entry here on my blog. The schtick this time was that the story of 600 words or less had to begin with the words I’ve marked in royal blue. Some of you may recognize bits I “borrowed” from a flash I wrote quite a while ago.

Endings

“She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. The End.”

I read the final words of my book aloud, struck by the foreshadowing of my own ending.

Eight long hours stand between me and my new life.

I can’t concentrate. At work I let my phone go to voice mail. A few emails pull me back but only for a few hours. By lunch, my stomach has developed a serious case of the gurglies. Nothing wants to go down. It all sticks in my throat, until finally I give up and drown my hunger with a Coke or two or three.

I’m wired with caffeine, jittery and nervous. Only another two hours to go. What have I done all day long? Anything?

I finally check my voice mails.

One is from Ted. He needs me to pick up another loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, chides me for having let us run out.

One hour to go. I take a break and walk around the block. I mentally role-play all the possible scenarios when Ted discovers what I’ve done.

Fifteen minutes to go. I wonder if I can slip out early. What’s fifteen minutes after all?

Five o’clock. Thirty minutes to drive to the square though I only need fifteen. I bolt out the door with a hasty goodbye to my staff.

The man in the car next to me has his signal on and wants to break in front of me. I think he should have waited his turn, should have chosen the correct lane to begin with. Nobody likes people who take cuts; nobody likes a cheater. I don’t let him in, and he gives me the finger as I pass. I’m relieved the car behind me doesn’t let him in either.

I see the square ahead, and circle it twice looking for a parking space. When I find one, I throw the car into park, shut off the headlights and sprint to the statue that marks the center. This is where we are to meet, where he says he’ll be, where I’ll start my new life.

But he’s not here.

I take a seat on the bench…and wait.

My cell phone chimes with an incoming text. I snatch it out to read the message. “We need butter too.”

I wait.

It’s six o’clock, half an hour after our meeting time. Traffic has probably delayed him.

Another text arrives. “Are you still at the store? Should I pick up dinner?” I delete Ted’s message in a fit of impotent rage.

Six thirty. I’m cold. I pull my legs up into my coat and lay my head on my knees.

Another text arrives. I curse Ted’s relentless nagging.

It’s not from Ted. It’s from him. He’s very sorry, but he’s not coming. It’s over. We’re over. He can’t do it, can’t leave. He wishes me well and says he’ll always love me.

I stand in the center of the deserted square and brush the dirt off my coat. I stomp the life back into my feet, but hard as I stomp, I can’t make it flow to the rest of my body.

My car is cold and lifeless. We make quite the pair.

A man driving in the lane to my left puts on his right signal. I slow and wave him over in front of me.

I take the familiar route to the grocery store I frequent, where I’ll stop and pick up bread and milk and butter and dinner.

Three-Minute Fiction: The Round 8 Winner Is… (wnyc.org)
3 Minute Fiction 2012 (deegeesbb.wordpress.com)
And the Winner is . . . (paulrwaibel.com)

Make Believe

by J.A. Belfield, Jennifer M. Eaton, J. Keller Ford, Terri Rochenski, Kelly Said, Lynda R. Young

Release Date: December 3, 2012

Target Reader: Adult

Keywords: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Romance

Back of the Book

Sacrificial Oath by Terri Rochenski

An impetuous act unwittingly makes Alesuela the fulfillment of the Sovereign’s Blood Oath to their Goddess. In five days, she’ll be forced to make the greatest choice of her life: become the virginal sacrifice already promised, or force the man she loves most to die in her place.

With an impossible choice in front of her, she searches for ways to undo the oath, and in her quest, finds not everything in her life is as she expects.

The Amulet of Ormisez by J. Keller Ford

There is only one way to save Elton Fletcher’s brother from an insanity-ridden death.

After years away from home, fighting for his people, Elton returns to discover his only sibling, Cayden, possessed by greed and malice, and responsible for malicious, unthinkable deeds. Cayden, though, isn’t the only one afflicted by the Amulet of Ormisez, and Elton finds himself in yet another battle, where the price of failure could be his own life.

Birthright by Lynda R. Young

Christa can mask the pain and hide the scars, but running from a birthright is impossible.

She’s tried to escape her grief by fleeing to a small town in Florida. Much to her frustration, the locals think they recognize her even though she’s never been there before. To make things worse, a man named Jack spouts outrageous theories about her.

Both spur Christa to bolt, to start fresh yet again, but there’s something about Jack that intrigues her enough to stay. The only problem? Someone else wants her to leave, and they won’t stop until she’s dead.

Petrified by Kelly Said

A mysterious storm has replaced summer with winter, devastating crops and smothering Castle lands in snow. Prince Sterling August stands alone as a leader, lost in personal grief as well as a desire to help his people but with an inability to do either.

The answers he needs await him, but without Lochlyn, a woman who’s just as isolated as Sterling, he’ll never see what stands before him, cloaked in illusion.

Last Winter Red by Jennifer M. Eaton

Emily is a Red, a woman whose sole purpose in life is to produce offspring. When her husband dies and leaves her childless, she risks her life and forsakes the safety of Terra—a disease-free city born after the nuclear holocaust. Beyond its boundaries, she knows, survives a man with whom she can be properly paired.

The Outside, though, holds secrets the government struggles to keep, and what Emily discovers on her quest for a mate will change her life forever.

Escort to Insanity by J.A. Belfield

From a charity auction, to a stroll in the park, to the craziest night of her life. Nicole Harrington can’t help but wonder how a simple event went so drastically wrong.

Of course, the male escort she booked is wholly to blame. Not only charming but shrewdly intelligent, Benjamin Gold drags Nicole into a platoon of unimaginable problems—ones from which she’ll have to find the courage just to survive.

URL: http://www.jtaylorpublishing.com/books/17