Powder Burn Flash # 260 - Stephen D. Rogers

PEACE RESTORED
by Stephen D. Rogers

This week, she had called.  Last week it was him.

It didn't really matter who called.

The story was always the same.

They started drinking Friday night and didn't stop until Saturday afternoon when they started fighting.

Always around midnight, one of them called.

I parked in front of the residence.  Copspeak for the shithole where these losers lived.

No sign of the neighbors but then they probably did their best to pretend these two didn't exist, as if that would make them go away.

Walking up the broken path to the open front door, I felt myself getting high from the alcohol fumes.

How many drunk drivers wouldn't be stopped because I was waiting my time here?  How many women would go into labor unassisted?  How many men would take the law into their hands?

I knocked on the edge of the screen door and announced myself.  Waited, and then entered.

These two drank and they fought and they nearly killed each other, week after week.

Damn, but the place stank.

I found them in the bedroom, lying on the floor, almost near enough to hug.

She still clutched her phone. Despite the beating he'd given her.

He was stabbed in at least three places.

Both still alive.

I sat there on my haunches, watching them breathe, drawing in the oxygen they needed to live, to heal, to start the cycle again next week.

I crushed her windpipe.  Stabbed him a final time.

Radioed the station:  peace restored.

BIO:  Over five hundred of Stephen's stories and poems have appeared in more than two hundred publications.  His website, www.stephendrogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.