1993. Body in the woodshed

29 Replies

When Dawn saw the dead body in her woodshed she didn’t know what to do next. Clearly the body had died several hours earlier. Rigor mortis had already begun to set in. Dawn had once worked as a nurse so she knew these things. Trying to revive the body was a waste of time. It was as dead as the wood in her woodshed.

Dawn was a practical woman to the hilt. She remained absolutely calm. She surveyed the situation as if she was in a fabric shop selecting a pattern for a proposed table runner. What to do with the body? She shut the woodshed door and went back into the house.

It wasn’t winter. It wasn’t cold. There would be no need for her to get firewood for a couple of months. She had bought an air ticket for her husband to go to Hawaii on a vacation for several months. They did that in their marriage once every decade or so. It cleared the air and they could start afresh. He had left yesterday, so the story would go. Dawn would simply leave the body in the woodshed until winter.

That way the coroner would have difficulty determining the cause of death of her husband. “But I thought he was having a great time in Hawaii.”

29 thoughts on “1993. Body in the woodshed”

  2. umashankar

    You have surely perfected the art of writing about homicides to hitherto unsurpassable levels. I appreciate how the protagonist chances upon a ‘body’ which is as dead as the logs in the woodshed. It is of course revealed towards the end that the body belonged to her husband but by then it has been drained off of the last drops of humanity, denuded of any significance that it may have had as an animate being in the past. It is as if the creature, a distant Neanderthalian cousin of the bipeds currently roaming the earth, had succumbed to a variant of the plague in the Pleistocene epoch. I pity the coroner whose unenviable job it will be to decipher the cause of death after the dark winter which sometimes is known to have burnt skeletons to cinders in ancient fireplaces.

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    1. Bruce Post author

      Thank you for the fulsome comment, Uma. I suspect that post-covid recuperation means that you haven’t as yet returned to work?! I hope you liked the photo of some of my next winter’s warmth.

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    1. Bruce Post author

      I never understood passive voice and all that crap that applies to Romantic languages. Our language is Germanic and has not the passive voice except borrowed from foreign Latin. Square pegs in round holes went out a long long time ago. Thus, sorry Chelsea, but I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. When I studied in America in the 80’s the (rather elite) university banned sexist language and the passive voice. Sorry to be so vehement about this – but I have no idea what the passive voice is, and nor do I care. Let’s try to get creative rather than rule-bound. Apart from that, I like your blog, but please don’t tell me what to do on mine as it utterly nullifies creativity (as does the Oxford comma).

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      3. Chel Owens

        Bruce! I’ve been thinking about your very serious tirade. I meant that the way you wrote the story was funny because events happened to your main character. I may have used the term “passive voice” incorrectly.

        I’m very sorry if I upset you. I’m confused how I did, but hope you accept my apology.

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        1. Bruce - Weave a Web Post author

          Sorry about it – I didn’t mean to be so tyrannical! my apologies again. You said you had sent an email – but thus far I haven’t got it.I also did a tirade to Nitin who I think you follow but I wasn’t thinking of you when I tiraded him! It all stems from a conversation I had with a blogger in Nottinghamshire in England about grammar. So I’ve been a bit hot under the collar. I trust your new job is going ok. We still haven’t had much money come in since February so life is always on tender hooks – expecially when I wake up in the middle of the night and worry!!! So all in all I don’t accept your apology because you didn’t need to apologize!!

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          1. Chel Owens

            I sent it to your contacts@… one. Thank you, Bruce; I was very worried. I don’t know enough (or care enough) about grammar rules to correct anyone, especially someone who clearly already writes so well!

            … guess you’d better make it up with Nitin, too. 🙂

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            1. Bruce - Weave a Web Post author

              Thanks Chelsea – Nitin and I go back years and years – we’re fairly used to hurling insults at one another! Dare I say it – but he’s worse than me (sometimes). I am looking forward to having a break – but always set these signposts to pass – like Story 2020. It doesn’t do my soul much good – but…

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