The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Death Is Not Trivial
by Melissa R. Mendelson 

I watched them crawl over her apartment like ants, scavenging what they could for clues.  Their feelers were out.  They found nothing.  No trace of foul play.  Only her body.  Only the look of terror frozen on her face.

They glanced at me as if you would a speck of dust.  One man scratched the back of his head.  His partner shrugged.  Something scared her, something that made her shriek in absolute terror, followed by silence.  I liked the silence.

They were taking her body outside now.  Vultures gathered around with flashing lights, all hungry for an Instagram or Twitter like.  No one asked what happened except for one idiot.  “Is she dead?”  Well, if she wasn’t dead, then why are the police here?

I spotted one woman standing outside close to the open door.  She wiped away a crocodile tear.  Did anyone catch that?  Would her picture go viral on the web as “a friend grieves for a sudden loss?”  I shook my head.

“What about the bird?”  One man said as he pulled his gun out from his holster.

“If he’s smart…”  His partner glanced at me and then gestured over to the open door.  “He’ll fly out.  If not.”  He pointed at the gun in the other man’s hand.

“Shoo.  Get out of here.  Shoo.  What’s he doing out of his cage anyway?”  The man clicked the safety off.  “Don’t make me shoot you.”  I blinked at him.  “I think the damn thing just smiled at me.”

“Maybe he likes you,” his partner said.

No, I don’t, I thought.  I looked at the gun waiting in his hand.  They were so quick now to death.  I’ve seen it out the window so many times these days.  The couple arguing next door.  Then, a week later, that husband made the news, showing up at his wife’s workplace and taking her and three other coworkers out.  Why?  Because he didn’t want a divorce.

How about the man that hit a small boy on his bike?  Why?  Because he didn’t want to stop for a Stop Sign.

And she was no saint.  She tried everything she could to make a coworker leave her workplace.  She just didn’t like them.  Then, she suddenly came up with an idea and poured rat poison into their coffee.  She didn’t even feel bad when they died.  Instead, she cleaned her apartment and sang on top of her lungs.  It was a miracle that they didn’t call the police then.

“You’re all doomed,” I whispered.

“Did you say something?”  The partner asked the other man.

“I think the bird chirped,” the man said.  “Can I shoot it now?”

His partner responded by picking up a small broom, the same broom that she had used to clean her apartment.  He swiped it at me, but he still couldn’t reach the top of the breakfront.  He threw the broom to the side and nodded at the other man.

Before the other man could pull the trigger, my wings expanded, and I flew toward him.  The action was so sudden that he fell back, and the broom was not lying flat down.  It was positioned like a spear pointing at his back.  The other man gasped as he looked down at his chest, at the handle of the broom now coated in his blood and guts.  The gun fell out of his hand.

“Fucking bird,” his partner said, but he didn’t pick up the gun to try and shoot me.  “I’m going to have to find a new partner now.”

Is this what people have become?  So careless with death, but death is not trivial. 

I flew out the door.

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Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is the author of the Sci-Fi Novella, Waken, and the poetry collection, This Will Remain With Us.  She also has two self-published short story collections, Better Off Here and Stories Written Along COVID Walls.  All the books can be found on Amazon/Amazon Kindle.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: https://linktr.ee/melissarmendelson