Entry #33

"Every Hope and Dream"
by SF Johnston


My wife Rebecca is down the hall behind that door. Her best friend Heather came over tonight, and they were going to drink Chardonnay and watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s and talk all the way through it. She’ll be singing Moon River to herself.

But there’s blood on the front of my Jag, and a startled face burning itself onto my retinas. I have to go in there and–

And all I can do is stare at the two table lamps that Heather gave us at our wedding. My God, I never meant to hurt anybody.

Every hope and dream I ever had came true tonight. I made partner. Haute Medoc with dinner, single malt in the bar, and then she stepped out in front of me. I was going too fast, especially for our neighborhood. But it’s a Jag.

And what did I do? I sped away like a rabbit from a wolf. Like a coward.

Anyway, forensics. There aren’t any other cars like mine around here, and they’ll be coming for me with broken headlight glass in their little bags.

So I’ll go in and shatter Rebecca’s world. Then she’ll hold my hand and we’ll go down to the police station and I’ll end up in prison. I’ll last about a minute.

But I can’t stop staring at our beautiful yellow lamps, and thinking about the very last thing Heather saw before I hit her. Two yellow lamps racing through the black to snuff out every hope and dream.