In case you missed it last Friday, I posted the first part of a two-part short story.  I’m not waiting until this Friday to post the conclusion, because Fridays are slow days on teh internets.

Her Dying Wish (Part 2)

Normally, Saturday mornings were for her (as they are for everybody–as they are for you) bliss.  Waking up is a delight because you have slept well, your subconscious untroubled in slumber by the unpleasant prospect of being woken by an alarm and having to go to work and finding repose in the freedom of an entire day ahead of you to do as you please–or, if you are dying, an entire day to do the things you always wanted to do before you die.

This Saturday, however, she awoke feeling as if she had never slept at all.  Read the rest of this entry »

Authors, apparently, must also be Bloggers.  As part of my mission to re-vamp lrburt.com, I’m incorporating several regular features, including Fiction Fridays, which are dedicated to posts about writing or excerpts of my fiction projects.

Since my readers are probably more interested in what I write than in how I write it, I’ll kick off Fiction Fridays with a short story I wrote a few years ago.  Actually, it’s not terribly short, so I’ll break it into two parts to post this week and next.  It’s a humor piece, and a love story, and it stars a roll of toilet paper.  Something for everyone.

Her Dying Wish

by LR Burt

If you asked her what she wanted to do before she died, she would tell you things unsurprising and unremarkable: to travel to Europe, to write a novel, to go skydiving, maybe, if she was feeling adventurous.

If she told you this, you would believe her; after all, everybody, yourself included, wants to travel to Europe, write a novel, and skydive before they die.

Like everyone who claims these dying wishes, she never put spare change in a jar to save for that European vacation; she never sat down to write the first line of the novel that came to her as a lightning bolt of inspiration; she definitely never felt adventurous enough to sign up for a skydiving course.

No, what she dreamed of, in her secret heart, was to knock glass jars off supermarket shelves; to say swear words in places and in front of people she shouldn’t; to write a scathing letter to a person of great importance.

In short, what she wanted to do before she died was to become a menace to society.

Of course, if you asked her, she would never tell you that, because as far as she knew, she really and truly believed she was exactly like everybody else–and nobody else wanted to become a menace to society before they died. At least, no one told her otherwise. If anyone had, she might have recognized her real dreams sooner, without resistance or thinking she was going mad, and by pleasanter means than the threat of her imminent death.

Although, if she had recognized her real dreams under less urgent circumstances, she would not have realized that she’d never really lived at all, or felt so acutely what it meant to come to life. Read the rest of this entry »