THEN:
They said he was hot-headed, but knew it was underlaid with the word excuse. They turned away from the incremental steps they witnessed, confining them to their imaginations. They avoided each other’s eyes. When he told them she had left him, they believed him the way eight-year-old children believe in Santa Claus.
NOW:
The Police call them cold cases, the ones when all viable leads have been exhausted, the disappearances still unsolved. But then, a new lead might come out of the blue, a body discovered, sometimes no more than a skeleton.
They will see it on the TV, and their guilt will keep the answers zipped inside their lips, and anyway, they’ve not seen him for years. But they will go to bed that night and, in the blackness, will break into a sweat, feel the hot and the cold of it.
Kathryn Ratzko completed a Certificate in Creative Writing with York University after retiring ten years ago. She has been long-listed, short-listed and highly commended in flash fiction and poetry including Flash 500, Retreat West and Grindstone Literary. She lives in the Cheshire countryside with her husband.
This story was shortlisted in the March 24 Monthly Micro Competition.