Winner, Atlantis Dreamweave Stroytelling Festival Microfiction Contest, 2018
Dorothy Bettars was the first person I watched die. I borrowed my brother’s old El Camino so that her last days here on Earth would be spent driving the country with the windows down. Her wig blew off and fell behind the seat, the wind whipping around her bald head and forcing her mouth open into a broad smile.
I held her hands as she fell asleep that night, her words echoing in my head, “Thank you for today. We should do it again tomorrow.”
We went to the river and she waded out into the current, pulling her jeans up around her calves. The water wasn’t deep, and she laughed as the rivulets of water tickled her feet. “Take a picture,” she said, and handed me her phone. I walked up the bank to get the shot, and she posed.
She told me to drive and not to stop unless she said to. She sang with the radio. She made me turn into a roadside fruit stand where she bought a watermelon, a bushel of peaches, and a pound of peanuts with my credit card, and we ate as we drove. We stopped at a small fair and went on all the rides. We spent the night in a hotel room off the interstate. She slept while I held her hand.
I called her family and the police the next morning. I took the El Camino back to my brother and pulled Dorothy’s wig from behind the seat.
Evan Seay 