Flash Nano 2024 No. 4 A reocurring noise

 

Paul Murphy was a cop in a town of 5,000 people. The town had a center with a grocery store, a doctor’s office, a lawyer’s office and a hardware store that serviced the farmers that lived outside the town.

Paul with his wife Andrea lived on the edge of the town in a Cape Cod style house. Andrea had been a city girl that was not sure how she ended up as a small-town cop’s wife. She’d met him at her cousin’s wedding and was drawn to his blue eyes and blond hair. If he had not been an addicted reader like she was, they probably would never have ended up married.

There were many things that intrigued her about her new life. Used to traffic, congestion, garbage on the streets and her crowded studio, which was all she could afford in the big city on her salary as a college lecturer with little hope of promotion, the quiet of Paul’s town, a village really like one out of a TV serial, and especially Paul’s vegetable and flower garden seemed exotic.

Thus, she married Paul, without really thinking it through, what it would mean to give up her work, friends, the chance to pop into a music or choose between all kinds of movies.

After their honeymoon, Paul had been on the day shift for a month. Then it was his turn to switch to the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. She had stayed up to kiss him goodbye, hand him a sandwich which she made in case he was hungry later, adding some cookies, she’d made as part of her new job as wife, and crawled into bed.

At 2:27 according to the clock on her bed, she’d heard a scratching downstairs. It was the first time  -  or so she thought. She might have slept through an earlier noise when she was curled up in Paul’s arms.

It could have been a branch against the back door, but the sound moved to the bottom of the stairs. Should she be a coward and call Paul. Her head said no, but the scratching grew louder. She called.

Paul drove up in the cruiser. He looked throughout the house but saw nothing that should concern Andea.

Two night later it happened again. Then almost every night for a week.

Paul became annoyed at the middle-night calls. “You’re a cop’s wife. You need to be braver.” His solution was to buy her a gun and show her how to shoot.

A neighbor, who had befriended her, said, “Maybe it was a ghost. Andrea didn’t believe in ghosts and even if she had, a gun would be useless against ghosts. She stopped calling Paul, but lay in bed, the quilt pulled up to her neck with the gun in her hand.

The next day, she called her best friend back in the city, who offered to come and spend the night. Together they could track down the noise.

Paul welcomed Shelley before leaving for work. Shelley crawled into bed with Andrea.

“Maybe it won’t come tonight,” Andrea said. The two women fell asleep but at 4:22 the scratching woke them up.

They crept out of bed and down the stairs toward the kitchen where the scratching was coming from.

“Murderers and burglars don’t scratch,” Shelley said. “But rats do. Look at the size of the sucker.”

The rat was larger than the Jack Russell Andrea had had growing up.

“Shoot it.” Shelley said.

Andrea raised the gun, but the rat decided to leave before she could aim and fire.

The next day Paul sealed the hole that he guessed the rat had used to visit their kitchen. He chided Andrea for not noticing some of the bread she’d left out was missing.”

“I thought you ate it,” Andrea defended herself. Maybe garbage and city congestion wasn’t so bad after all.

 

 

Free Write - Election

 

This week, two of the writers were at a conference in Portugal and the third was back in Switzerland. One American and two ex-Americans made Rick's choice of topic, obvious--Election. Per usual, we each wrote for ten minutes from the prompt.

Rick's Free Write

They were reporting the election results on streaming TV and, of course, the government-run social media site, Verity. But no one paid much attention. The results had been known months ago, perhaps years before. The ruling party received 98.6% of the popular vote, and the president was re-elected again.

There were token votes for the ‘opposition’ candidate, who was only on the ballot as a pretense of ‘democracy,’ to fool the gullible into believing they had a voice in their fate. Some days or weeks after, the candidate would die from a mysterious food poisoning or a fall out a window.

It hadn’t always been this way. The country once had a robust democratic process, generally won by one of the two major parties, and there were several third-party choices as well. But the ultraconservatives had eked out a victory for their cult leader, largely by pseudo-legal manipulation of the system and an oligarch paid-for judiciary, and once in power he (and his heirs) had no intention of giving up the reins, and perks, of autocracy.

That was 20 years ago, 2024, and from then to today the once-United States of America is unrecognizable.

 D-L's Free Write

Erica waited in line to vote standing behind two males. 

"Bob has to win," Jason said. "Can you imagine if Jenny wins? He shook his head then turned to look at Erica. "You better vote for Bob, or we will tell Mason."

Erica smiled. She needed to break up with Mason. He had pushed her too hard both physically and mentally. He'd forbidden her to see certain of her friends. Enough of that treatment, she thought.

The line inched toward the classroom where the class president would be elected.

Later that day, the results were announced. Jenny had won, not by a landslide, but by three percent, the same percentage that the girls outnumbered the boys.

Julia's Free Write

OK, it’s that day, the one we’ve all been either looking forward to, or dreading.

She had just entered school at age six – yes this was years ago – and during that very first week she heard the word for the first time: 3 syllables. Her teacher’s PICKING her to be the one posed with an apple in her hand towards the teacher, to be the photo in the local newspaper is still a reminder of simpler times.

Later as a young teenager, her SELECTION as the 8^th grade class representative marked the fact that her diction was good: of all the mumblers, she was the clearest.

As an older, on the verge of adulthood, teenager, her NOMINATION as editor of the school newspaper seemed unmerited, but then she did love to read.

In university she made a life-changing and determining DECESION to study abroad a year.

Her CHOICE of country, totally unplanned.

And so we come to the Meriam Webster’s definition of ELECTION

The one taking place today will determine the world’s future.

Nano2024 A Narrow Escape

The prompt for the second Flash Fiction for November was The day the mirror shattered.

The first time Eleanor was in Peter’s house, she felt as if she were in an art gallery or a palace, although the house was only three stories with a winding staircase.

On her first visit, he’d cooked her a meal of orange duck, the tenderest veggies that she’d ever eaten. Desert was a concoction of sherbet, meringue and the type of chocolate whose flavour stayed in your mouth for hours because you wanted it to. He said he’d made everything himself.

After they ate, he gave her a tour of the first floor furnishings, telling her the history of each piece and commenting on how the colours had been selected as much as the history of the piece.

In the hallway as he helped her on with her coat after calling a cab, he showed her a mirror. The finish was marred with black spots. The frame was gold leaf with delicate curlicues. “My best piece. It came from Versailles.”

Over the next few months Eleanor and Peter dated going to the best restaurants, the theatres, museums. He introduced her to his friends, mostly businessmen she had read about on the financial pages. She suspected half their wives were the second Mrs. based on the age difference.

At first, she loved that he wanted to buy her clothes before each outing rather than accept what she had chosen. Then he took her to the hairdresser to change the style she’d worn for so long, and although she liked the new shorter style, Peter was beginning to make her uncomfortable.

Some months into the relationship, she noticed he didn’t want to hear anything about her work as a college archaeology professor, about the dig she’d been on last summer. “It’s too bad you won’t be able to go back this year,” he said. She had already been planning on it. A little voice told her to discuss it later.

When she picked up a marble statue of Venus, he jumped from his seat, took it from her and put it back in the measuring equal distance with his hands to make sure it was in the same even spot as before. “Everything is where it should be. Don’t touch anything.”

“I think, I need to go home. I’ve work for tomorrow’s lectures.”

“I thought you were staying the night.” Each word was followed by a pause.

“I don’t like plans changing.”

Eleanor thought about it. No matter what she suggested for an evening, what plans, she suggested he changed them. That same little voice told her not to end the relationship at that moment.

“You should have told me earlier,” he said.

She started to put on her coat, but he grabbed her, shoved her. Her head hit the Versailles mirror. The force knocked it off the wall, the shards landing both on the cabinet and floor below.

When she put her hand on the back of her head, it was wet from the blood.

“Look what you’ve done.” Now his voice was a whisper. “How will you ever pay for it on your silly salary.”

She didn’t answer but ran out the door. She knew she’d never be back. At the hospital she needed five stitches. The emergency doctor picked glass out of her scalp. She kept one of the pieces, a reminder of her narrow escape.

Every fertile woman's life is in potential danger

 

The doctor in A Private Matter, a 1992 movie about Sherri Finkbine Chessen’s (1932-) fight for a therapeutic abortion after taking Thalidomide, said his Arizona hospital performed around 300 abortions a year during the time when abortion was illegal. The alleged reasons were to save the life of the mother.

The number shocked me: three hundred, one hospital, one city.

Doctors found a way around the law to help women claiming that the procedure would save the life of the mother. The women needed to see a psychiatrist, certifying she wasn’t stable. I had friends who would take their daughters to a psychologist just in case they needed an abortion in the future. They would have a track record of psychological problems to increase the chances of being given a legal abortion.

More than one doctor, who went against the law, expressed the reason it would save the women from the back alley or a knitting needle which led to many women’s death, so the concept of saving the woman’s life was not a total falsehood.

Thalidomide, Too Dangerous for Pregnant Women

The German company Grünenthal Group developed Thalidomide and began marketing under the brand Contergan in 1957. The drug was said to relieve insomnia, anxiety and gastritis.

It was also effective against morning sickness. Because it was impossible to overdose, it was declared safe. Distillers, a United Kingdom company, manufactured and sold it under the name Distaval.

Reports of nerve damage and malformed babies surfaced between 1959 and 1961, all of which were ignored by the companies making the drugs. According to estimates, some 10,000 babies were born deformed worldwide. Half are reported to have died.

Two doctors, a Scot Leslie Florence and an American Frances Kelsey, of the Food and Drug Administration were first to sound the alarm, Florence for the damage and Kelsey because he was uncomfortable with companies involved not reporting potential nerve damage.

The drug was withdrawn in 1961.

Relying on a TV movie is not necessarily the most authoritative source for a book like this. If the happy dinner scenes and backyard BBQs in the movie might not be exact, the damage from the drug and the difficulty Chessen had in getting the abortion were real. The major points in the movie were backed up by articles in the newspapers and Chessen’s own testimony in documentaries such as From Danger to Dignity https://vimeo.com/24810848.

 

Miss Sherri Caught in a Trap

Sherri Finkbine was a busy mom with four children, the wife of a school teacher and the star of the local Romper Room on KPAZ, Channel 21 where she was Miss Sherri to pre-school viewers and guests in the studio.

She had trouble sleeping.

Her husband, a teacher, while he was leading a school trip to England and the continent, came across the drug and brought the pills back to the U.S., where it was unavailable. He wanted to help his wife get her needed sleep. Sherri took 36 of the tablets. At the time she was happily pregnant with her fifth child.

In July 1962, Sherri became aware of the problems with the drug when she read about the effects in the newspaper. The headline read, “Woman Doctor Curbs Newborn Tragedies.”

Her doctor recommended a therapeutic abortion after conferring with other doctors in the U.S. and Europe. She was unsure, but photos of deformed babies convinced her.

At the time, abortion was illegal in all the states unless it was necessary to save the woman’s life. Her doctor had to diagnose her as a potential suicide and then Chessen had to convince a psychiatrist of her instability, so he could perform the abortion legally at the Good Samaritan Hospital. She succeeded in convincing the psychiatrist and the abortion was scheduled.

Not wanting other women to take the drug if they came across it, she talked to the local newspaper the Arizona Republic several days before her scheduled operation. Reporter Julian DeVries broke the story 23 July 1962 under the headline, “Pill may cost Woman Her Baby.”

Sherri was supposed to be anonymous. It didn’t happen.

The next day her doctor called to say the operation had been cancelled. Sherri, thought she was unknown, but the news went out on the Associated Press wire. Calls had been made to the hospital from all over the world including threats and it caved to the pressure. One person tried to make a citizen’s arrest.

She was fired. Any woman getting an abortion was obviously unfit to stand before children after giving them milk and cookies and say: “God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Amen.” Even more she certainly couldn’t teach them what was right to do and what was wrong.

On 30 July, a judge decided that any doctor who performed the procedure could be charged criminally. When Sherri asked for immunity from prosecution if she obtained an abortion in Arizona, the Arizona Superior Court dismissed the case. Judge Yale McFate said there was no legal controversy and denied he had the authority to decide.

She searched for a doctor in and outside the U.S. to legally proceed. Japan, which did allow abortions, refused her a visa.

Sweden allowed it: she and her husband flew there. After the abortion on 18 August 1962, the doctors reported that the fetus was deformed, lacking legs and an arm.

On the couple’s return to the U.S., the press mobbed them as they walked down the plane’s stairs. “I don’t want to get back at anyone,” she said at the time. “I just want to do what is best in our case.”

There were death threats. The FBI was called in. The officers had to walk her children to school because there had been threats against the children’s safety. One person threatened to cut off the children’s arms and legs.

 

Life after The Abortion

Sherri loved children. She had two more children before divorcing her husband. Six children belonged to her second husband creating a large mixed family that outdid The Brady Bunch. She has adored grandchildren.

Her professional life has continued.

·         She had done voice overs for cartoons.

·         September-December 1970, she had a one-hour variety show on in Phoenix, AZ

She authored children’s books to address the issues of gun violence, sexual abuse, and bullying:

·         The Gorp’s Gift

·         The Gorp’s Secret

·         The Gorp’s Dream

Sherri is still alive as of this writing (November 2017).

The steps Chessen had to go through to prevent the birth of a deformed child that had it been able to survive would have had an incredibly limited life were horrifying. The couple knew what they were capable of doing and not doing in caring for a disabled child.

What right did the state have to add to their pain?