This was my entry for NPR's most recent round of 3 minute fiction. The rules: 600 words or less, must be able to be read on the radio, and it needs to be in the form of a voicemail message. It kind of an odd limitation, as a voicemail message is essentially a monologue, but I tried to have a strong story-line. Yes, it's dark, but what did you expect? It's called "Blame."
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“Father, I couldn't do it Father. I couldn't bear the thought of him suffering any longer. When they asked, I told them not to try, and when his heart stopped… his heart stopped, they let him go.
I know the doctors meant well, but really, what was the point? To pull through only to spend the rest of his life fed through a tube, hooked up to machines, cut off from the world? You said that every life is precious, but that’s not life. It wouldn't have been fair. None of this is fair.
Why did He let this happen, Father? What kind of a God allows innocence to die like that? I prayed, He knows that I prayed, but it was all for nothing. Now I've got nothing. He’s taken everything from me.
Forgive me Father. I know that I shouldn't blame Him or question His will, but how can His intentions be good? What lessons are there to learn in having your only son taken from you? I understand what you meant when you said to look to the cross. I see that He suffered the same and knows my sorrow. But He still allowed this to happen. It’s the cruelty of it all that I don’t understand.
Kate won’t even look at me anymore, and I don't blame her. But why didn't she lock the stupid door? She knows that Josh is tall enough to reach the doorknob. She said she was distracted, that she forgot. She usually doesn't forget things like that. Why this time? Why the one time when it mattered?
I don’t know what’s going to happen between us. She left for her parents right after… right after. Kate’s strong, but can we survive this together? For all we've been through, with her cancer and everything else, I thought that we could handle anything. But I guess even love has its limits. If she just locked the door…
He loved that tricycle so much. He took it so seriously too. The way he’d make a big production over putting on his helmet and adjusting those little side view mirrors. I got him a pair of those leather biking gloves, you know, the kind with the fingers cut off. They were too big for him, but he wore them anyway. ‘Drive fast.’ That’s what he’d always say. ‘I’m gonna drive fast.’ You should have seen him Father, the way he’d tear down the driveway, with that determined look on his face.
But Josh knows better, he knew better than to play in street. I told him a thousand times.
He shouldn't have been out there.
How was I supposed to know?
Why didn't I turn my head? I know that car has blind spots. I didn't check, Father. Why didn't I check?
Father, can He ever forgive me? How can anyone forgive me?
I’m sorry Father, for everything. I’m so sorry.
Would you talk to Kate and tell her that? Tell her that I’m sorry, just so she knows.”
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