The Bones of a Short Story

It starts with the skeleton

Conjuring up a short story can give you an exhilarating break, especially if you have writer’s block in your brilliant, complex novel. A short story will lubricate those brain cells every time. The sparks for a story are everywhere: artifacts or fellow creatures that cross your path in ordinary life situations. You can let your imagination go crazy.

Just remember, everything is material.

For me, it started with the skeleton.

Here’s what happened. After Halloween—my last Halloween in this town—I cut down my 4-feet-tall skeleton from the light above the porch. That leering skull would no longer terrify the neighborhood kids—not from my house, anyway.

I’d grown fond of the skeleton, and pondered its fate. The Dump seemed too harsh a resting place—that trusty pile of bones had served me well over the years. As for the Re-Use store, well … honestly, no.

I decided to present the skeleton to a neighbor down the road, who every year had put on a world-class Halloween display, with giant ghosts on the lawn, gravestones, bats, cobwebs, and of course, a skeleton party. I reckoned my skeleton would find solace in such company, a happy community.

So there I was, on a crisp Saturday morning, walking down the road, bearing my gift in my arms. I rang the doorbell and waited. Nothing. No one at home.

An empty crate sat outside the door. Gently, I placed my bony friend in the crate, arranging it to sit back languidly, bending one arm with a dangling hand on the edge of the crate. A skeleton with attitude.

In a silent, personal gesture, I waved goodbye and made my way back to my house.

###

From the neighbor, Melissa’s, point of view, it was a different story. Just another weekend that her husband was out of town, at a “conference.” She wondered if this time the conference was blonde with blue eyes, or perhaps a redhead with emerald green. Melissa herself was a brunette who used to have sparkling hazel eyes, but after the birth of her second child, when her post-partum weight ballooned, and her workload increased, the gleam had gone from her eyes.

Her husband, the eminent professor, had, in his middle age, discovered the joy of academic conferences.

Melissa had become the household drudge, and, as she blended more and more with the woodwork, her sense of grievance grew.

Melissa wasn’t quite sure what indignity, exactly, sent her over the edge. Perhaps it was his phone call the previous night, announcing he’d be gone another day. Or maybe his demand for roast beef on Sunday night. Perhaps it was another load of his dirty laundry, with his pungent socks lying on the floor.

She wouldn’t leave him, she decided. Not yet. She’d first seek revenge. A plot formed in her mind. A nice candle-light dinner, she reckoned. Just the two of them. Lots of herbs and seasonings, plus a spritz from the gardening shed …

When she returned from the supermarket on Saturday, she drove into the garage and entered the house in good spirits. A weight seemed to have lifted from her shoulders. Melissa’s daughters remarked on it. They were now teenagers, who had the same youthful beauty Melissa had once had.

They had a jolly lunch, the three of them. Later, they took in a football game.

Night fell early in November. While Melissa was preparing dinner for herself and the girls that Saturday, the doorbell chimed. No doubt someone leaving a parcel, Melissa thought. She opened the door and stepped into the icy evening air to pick up the package.

That’s when she saw a skeleton in the crate.

She let out a cry, stumbled backward, and fell onto the concrete ground. She lay there for a moment or two, winded. What was that … thing … doing on her doorstep?

Lit by a sliver of moon, the skeleton looked down on her, its evil grin mesmerizing in the ghostly light. A faint wind whispered through the skull, a tremor from afar in the dark ether.

Don’t you dare, it said.

  ###

It struck me afterwards that I shouldn’t have just left the skeleton there without a note. What on earth would the people in the house make of it?

So, the next day, I returned to my neighbor’s house and rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a large, dark-haired woman wearing a voluminous garment. “Hi,” she said.

“I’m the person who left the skeleton in the crate.” I pointed to the plastic interloper, which was still sitting in its cheeky position. “I’m your neighbor from a few houses away,” I said.

The woman laughed. “Yeah, I wondered. I’m Melissa, by the way.”

She was friendly, and I smiled back at her. “I love your Halloween displays.” I gestured to the graveyard, which was still in the garden. “I wanted to find a good home for my skeleton.”

She chuckled. “Your skeleton will love it here.”

Two teenage girls came to the door and gaped at me.

“Thank you,” Melissa said. “We did the display ourselves this year. My husband is out of town.”

THE END

A note to writers of short stories everywhere: Start with the bones, and be sure to end with a sting in the coccyx.