Any Given Recent Day

 

 

     A sudden flat tire on an approaching car caused cyclist Agnes Slayer to leave the shared road without ceremony. She survived her fall into the adjacent ditch until a bicycle pedal impaled her throat.

 

     Two thieves would have made off with their clanking collection of silver and leaded glass, had they not been intercepted by bullets fired by their gun's rightful owner, Douglas Montaigne.

 

     Rebuffed by her employer of six years and jilted by her lover of seven years, Irene took all of two seconds to dart in front of a municipal bus. Her next two rides were in an ambulance and a hearse, respectively.

 

     The embezzlement of more than $26,000 from the school booster club account came to no one's attention, until the assistant basketball coach was first summarily fired and then arraigned on charges of larceny.

 

     Ten-year-old Bobby Akins learned that a shotgun shell struck on its brass end with a hammer can indeed take out the left eye of an eight-year-old brother observing the proceedings close by.

 

     Branstead was not the only claims adjuster to fall from a roof he was inspecting for hail damage, but certainly he was one of the few to fall to his death trying to observe the uninhibited banging the policyholders were engaged in under the breezeway connecting their house to their poolhouse.

 

     Yawning extravagantly after winning the lottery, Mr. Vanscher stretched his arms out and up and arched his spine backwards, successfully tipping over and striking the cement floor of his oil-stained carport with his head, in mortal fashion.

 

     In spite of his Social Security disability, Mayor Snagnail labored for nine years for the Town of Mustville at full pay, with benefits, until the Social Security Administration revoked his disability status for the duration of his prison sentence for fraud.

 

     Farmer Joe Shockley dismounted his tractor to determine whether the motor was overheating. The exploding radiator conduit soon answered his question unequivocally, although fatally.

 

     A motorbike without a chainguard exhibits certain properties similar to those possessed by a chainsaw, and any motorbike rider not wearing sturdy footwear must concede to the legitimacy of the comparison once a foot has become wholly detached.

 

     A delivery driver with a spotless record, Steve Havarty, who infallibly looked left and right before exiting his panel truck, failed to look up after a rare late-season ice storm to see a heavy oak limb snapping the power line directly overhead.

 

     While he had handled revolvers from his youth without incident, Emil was unaccustomed to the holster assigned to him as police chief of the small town of Brentburg, and the first time he drew his pistol for practice in his office, he perforated both one leg and the trash can sitting next to it.

 

     Her high school laboratory arrayed with an impressive collection of retorts, test tubes, and specimen bottles, chemistry teacher Wallis Lewis found that concealment of a daily ration of gin and vermouth was not only possible but downright preferable.

 

     Cheerful stockbroker Brad Lindon, taking exception to the market's sudden sharp retreat from the tech sector, parked his BMW in his enclosed garage after a long day at work without troubling to cut it off.

 

     Unable to secure employment, her marriage prospects dim due to age, and provoked by her discovery by the collection agency she'd been evading for years, Therese decided to take the easy way out with a small bowlful of oxycodone and a large goblet of chardonnay.

 

     Long-married Dr. Philbin, who renewed his casual acquaintance with a nurse he had met during his residency, discovered the limits of patient understanding he formerly had been willing to ascribe to his devoted wife Jeannette.

 

     Musician Lanny Bosporus, whose sense of personal safety dictated that he never fly to his concert venues, entertained himself in his train car en route to Toronto with a hefty dose of morphine and a generous amount of bourbon. A similar train carried his coffin to his memorial concert one week later.

 

     No one would dare televise an inadvertent suicide, yet no cameraman worth his salt would be able to steer his camera away from a disgruntled eleven p. m. anchor pulling a .32 revolver from his coat pocket to fire it into his right ear: it did not appear in the script nor was it featured on the teleprompter.

 

     Church secretary Semella Long ceased to entertain her views on perpetual monogamy and marital fidelity, as her recent practice of stuffing her undergarments into the desk drawers of the Reverend Martin Kent suggested to the non-denominational pastor.

 

     Grocer Charlie Worth did not long regret having fired deli worker Clarisse Morton for tardiness while permitting her to complete her shift, as her skillful blend of rat poison with veal parmesan and a side order of asparagus sautéed with sliced almonds and parsley proved beyond all doubt.

 

     Could anyone have foreseen that deaf vagrant Lois Thornton's practice of retrieving refuse from along the railroad beds would inevitably lead to the tracks' being strewn with shredded plastic and dismembered limbs? In a word, yes.

 

     Less than satisfactory coitus and a stubborn case of gonorrhea resulted from cheerleader Mandy Spivins's decision to seduce center Ken Crutchley—without benefit of a condom—in the back of the activity bus returning from a state championship.

 

     Fitness trainer Mitch Lassiter discovered at closing time that the husband of pilates enthusiast Charlotte Vinson was both more jealous and a much better shot than she would have led him to believe had he but asked.

 

     Backhoe operator Slim Worthington, in spite of his professional training, never learned the intrinsic value of literacy nor the veracity of natural gas pipeline operator postings that warned of the dangers inherent in excavating too close to their right-of-way.

 

     A dutiful son, overwhelmed that his invalid mother had survived her debilitating stroke by ten years and eleven months, fed her a .38 slug for breakfast instead of her customary oatmeal.

 

-END-