News From Mahlon County

A fiction excerpt by William M. Brock

DEATH BY MISADVENTURE: Carl Sneeps, age 53, accidently drowned in the main settling pond of the Marliss Sewage Treatment Plant. Mr. Sneeps worked as a salesman for Country Estates Condominiums, the housing complex breaking ground west of Marliss.

ARRESTED: Magenta Sue Beekman, age 32, for vandalism to a drilling rig belonging to Gilly Morgan of the Morgan Well Drilling Company. Asked if he would press charges, Mr. Morgan said: “I probably should, you know, but I can’t decide. Just have to wait and see, I guess.”

ACCIDENT: Jericho Powell, age 47, driving a late model pick-up, collided with a bicyclist on Red Bluff Road. For those keeping score, this was Powell’s twelfth accidental collision with a bicyclist since June of last year. No charges filed.

Magenta Sue Beekman’s complexion did not live up to her name. Her skin was the pale yellow of old candle wax. A foul tempered, vindictive woman, today she directed her wrath toward Gilly Morgan--a futile exercise at best. Hostility was his bread and butter. “Four weeks, you’ve been drilling, you lying sack! Two days, three on the outside, you said.”

“Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t.” Morgan looked puzzled. He didn’t understand why people were mad at him all the time. “But it shouldn’t be more than another three days, four on the outside.”

Moving here from the city was the worst mistake of her life. Now she had to deal with this passive-aggressive asshole while her worthless husband rode around on that stupid mountain bike all weekend. The hell with them all. “Finish up and get this junk out of here by tomorrow, or I’ll set it on fire-- you, too, if I can catch you.”

“If that’ll make you happy, just go right ahead.” When she came back with a 10 gallon gas can and a box of kitchen matches, Gilly ran off toward the River. That woman’s crazy, he thought.

Magenta Sue didn’t feel crazy. Her new lover, Carl, would bail her out and hire a lawyer. The fat old man was rolling in money. He sold all those condos, and stuck the new owners with a 2 million dollar sewer assessment. About time she hooked up with someone as smart as herself.