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My Only Darling B—

You can’t imagine how a woman of substance has changed this ranch and all your boys, me included. Our Dulce. Billy brought her, thinking she was his, but all your sons have found reasons to cherish her: soft voice, sharp eye, curves in certain light, each one a feature of you that they must be reminiscing. They think their affection is genuine, but they’ve fallen in love with their mother, or parts of you. Merciful God, I’m sorry, B! I should never have dragged you to a pitiless frontier expecting shelter from this omniscient sky. A man in love has given away half his brain and all of his decency!  When I watch the boys looking at Dulce, I understand where I went wrong. I was defeated by your eyes. Yes, I mean your ass. There, I’ve made you laugh. Since I saw you at that table alone in the café near your school, with my bag of blueprints for building a future far from home and nothing but bankruptcies behind me, any confidence I needed I took from those eyes of yours that did me in. Again, I mean that ass. You ridiculed my pickup line without mercy. But when I called your face expressive, I meant it as a warning that I could tell you would follow me anywhere I wandered to. I should have left you sheltered in a town full of friends, married to whoever you wanted. You could have had anyone, been anyone, instead of disintegrating here on acres of powdered grief, raising boys like livestock, and being The Colonel’s wife. I wish you were here to see her, B—. The boys will have a hard time keeping her from me. I see it in her eyes.

Love, Your Colonel.

Original Copyright © March 13, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 13, 2026

My favorite Thursday couple, smug but theoretically generous, sufficient to one another and seemingly self-contained, aspired to something more. To hear her talk of the baby was to be present at his creation. Of words she formed his little head with its wispy hair redolent of soap and spilled milk. She pressed the word Lips to the word Forehead and graced the baby’s path with choice and welcoming wide horizons. Yes, she was rhetorical. Yes, she had time on her hands. She wouldn’t be a casual mother, but too much planning had its perils, too, and she was nothing if not alive to the perils. The baby, the baby so long desired, the baby reluctant or eager, ready or not, was never consulted. At night in bed, her long warm body nestled along his long warm body insistently stirring, his arm around her waist and breath hot on her neck, she wanted to shake herself free of the future and fuck, but the baby, the unborn baby whose room was ready but whose parents were not, the baby was sleeping in ignorance too near, too lightly, and might wake if she did, might wake into fear in a dark room unfamiliar alone. She took his hand in hers and pressed it to her breast and hoped he’d fall asleep. The husband had no idea what she thought. He figured it was something to do with the nursery and painted it seven times over, once as an aquarium, once as a baseball diamond with fans in the stands, never guessing it was him she wanted to remodel. He had his visions of the future, too, and I grew tired of telling them their visions didn’t reconcile. They think next year may be the year. I hope for the baby’s sake.

Copyright © April 24, 2007

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299-WORD NOVELS

Character, conflict, emotional impact. And sentences! Everything you want in a novel, without one extra syllable.
  1. davidbdale's avatar

    Thank you so much, anhinga, but I wouldn't want to try it without the other 199. —David

  2. davidbdale's avatar
  3. anhinga's avatar

    All you need is 100 words to make an emotional impact. Touching.

  4. Unknown's avatar

    Brilliant, brother. Just simply brilliant.

  5. davidbdale's avatar

    This Very Short Novel has a strong resemblance to Simple Lessons of War from almost 20 years ago, but is…

Behind the Pseudonym

The pen name davidbdale honors my mother Beatrice (Bea) and my father Dale

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