By Louise Dragon
The shadow floated by the instant Claudia slipped backwards off the windowsill, and sensed the hundreds of feet of open space beneath her. It was a sign: an epiphany, the perfect ending to her life.
In her mind’s eye, Claudia pictured the devastation left behind as her body plummeted to destruction.
Her children, once beautiful sweet babies, now slept the deepest sleep of all. How could she have known they’d become nagging and whiny? They drove her to it. Never giving her a moment’s peace. She felt no remorse. She had to do it. They had spied on her . . . watched as she buried the ice pick into their father over and over again. Cried. Actually cried for him. How ungrateful. Didn’t they know she had done them a favor? Didn’t they know that she had to do it . . . he had found out about the others.
Her necessary deeds completed, she had thought about relocating and starting over; then she heard the sirens. Someone had called the cops.
No other way out now.
They couldn’t take her alive.
The sidewalk rushed up and took Claudia’s life, but not before the evil seed planted behind her left ear burst forth and buried itself into a female spectator. The watching woman gazed up in time to see a shadowy blot wing silently away, she scratched at an itchy place behind her left ear and thought: What a beautiful way to die.
END
