The blaring of the alarm clock jarred me from a deep sleep. Ughhh, morning already, I thought. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stretching and yawning as I got my bearings. Another day, another dollar. As I methodically went through the motions of my morning routine I began to wonder how I would keep myself entertained at work today. Hmmm, another rousing game of solitaire? Or perhaps I’ll challenge Sue in HR to a cut throat game of Words With Friends. I grabbed my mug of coffee and the latest copy of Sports Illustrated from the counter and headed out the door.

The doorman had my morning paper ready as I stepped outside into the brisk city air. Just a few blocks and I would be in the comfort of my corner office on the 26th floor.

The elevator opened and I was greeted by Vivianne, my secretary. “Good morning Jack! Here are your messages from yesterday.  Please make sure to call Sue in HR as soon as possible. She said it was an emergency.”

“Thanks Viv. Doesn’t Sue think everything‘s an emergency?” I chuckled.

I took out my laptop and put my briefcase on the floor next to my desk. I quickly browsed my messages while my laptop booted up. Nothing too exciting there I sighed, as I added them to last week’s pile.

I was quickly glancing through my inbox when an email in red from Sue caught my eye: Confidential – Applied Innovations Offer Letter. Offer letter? Why is Sue sending me an offer letter? I have been working here for years.

I opened the email and began reading.

Hi Bill and welcome to Applied Innovations. We are so happy to have you join our team. As you are aware, Applied Innovations is the leading company in company website and email security. Our cutting edge technology prevents spam, email hacking and viral infections transferred through email and outside websites log-ins. Our company is the only one of its kind to offer detailed logging and charting capabilities to monitor your staff’s email and internet usage. We are leading the way with new technology developments that will keep companies even safer from the ever growing world of hacking and prevent costly security breaches.

As Vice President of Technology you will be in charge of overseeing technology development, trialing newly created software and supervising the installation of hardware at client sites. You will also be accountable for supervising all employees in the technology and development centers and will be responsible for scheduling and conducting all of their yearly employee reviews.

Attached you will find your offer letter, commision framework, insurance package and available stock options.

Please complete all the required paperwork and fax them back to me as soon as possible. If you have any question, please feel free to contact me at any time.

Sincerely,

Sue

Bill?? Who was Bill? And why was he receiving an offer letter fo MY job? Before I could ponder the situation any further Vivianne buzzed my office.

“Jack? Jack? Sue is on line one for you.”

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, LP challenged me with “write a scene where an e-mail is sent to the wrong recipient.” and I challenged Jester Queen with “Write a story about fatherhood with a florist as the main character and a new dress as the key object. Set your story in a restaurant.”

The main road was dark and quiet. News of the storm was all anyone had been talking about for days. Jack had been sure to stock up on all the necessities the day before. He just had one more stop to make before he headed home to settle in the for the storm.

He checked his rear-view mirror. Only the pale flecks of the falling snow could be seen dancing across the blackened night sky. Jack pulled to the side of the road, laced up his boots, and grabbed his hat and gloves. The wind tore through his jacket as he walked to the back of his truck. He opened the tailgate, sliding his truncheon to the side, and reached in with both hands.

“Better get a move on before we are both stuck in the snow”, he sniggered.

The road had iced over, making it difficult to maneuver the extra weight. But nothing was as difficult as what he had witnessed when he came home early the other night. Her words had been like daggers, digging deep and twisting to the core. She had told him he was too effete for her taste, that she needed a real man to satisfy her needs. She thought she was so smug with her big words but he wasn’t as naive as she thought. He knew about all her time in those stupid chat rooms. She was never smart enough to erase the history.

After that, he knew what he had to do. There was no wavering, never a second thought to his decision. Things needed to be made right and he was just the man to do it.

He pulled his collar up around his neck and stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. The storm was just starting to pick up and Jack could feel the temperature dropping. The weatherman proclaimed it as going to be the snowstorm of the century this afternoon on the news. That was exactly the weather report Jack wanted to hear.

As he began to walk back to his truck, a blue glimmer in the snow caught his eye. The snow was softly falling on the body, creating the illusion of  fluffy white blanket. He stooped down and smirked when he realized what had caught his attention. She had always insisted on wearing that God-awful necklace – saying it brought her luck.

“Well look at all the luck it brought you now missy.”

Jack fingered the blue and green ostrich charm in his palm. “I have just the place for you little fella.” With a swift tug the necklace was free and dangling from his finger tips. He slid it in his shirt pocket and quickly re-zipped his jacket to fight off the wind’s brutal assault. The silence in his head was golden.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, ChrisWhiteWrites challenged me with “Use the words effete, truncheon and wavering in your story. Also, include an ostrich. Oh, and for bonus virtual high-fives adopt an orphan prompt from IndieInk. I chose: ‘The snow was falling softly on the body” and I challenged Kelly Garriott Waite with “Use these words in your story: doctor, roll of film, stairwell, telephone“.

Our house sat back from the road. While the cottage was small in size, it had been perfect for just the two of us, and the occasional visitor. She had been the one to find this beauty. After searching for days I was ready to call it quits, but Molly had other plans. She knew our dream home was out there – she could feel it. Molly could always ‘feel‘ things, it was her gift. Sigh….

I looked around, not quite sure what to do next. I had moved all of our chairs into the parlor in preparation for receiving guests. I had no doubt that everyone in town would make an appearance today.

The clatterings in the kitchen became more frantic as Molly’s sister tried to hurry through her list of duties before the guests began to arrive.

“Be a dear Jack and check on Molly would ya?” she bellowed from the kitchen.

I walked down the hall to our bedroom. I took a deep breath as I turned and entered our room. I had taken extra care when getting Molly ready. Even like this, she still took my breath away.

She had on her, and my, favorite black dress that she would always wear for very special occasions. I remember the way she would whisk up her hair and coyly ask me to zip up the back, even though she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. She also had on her Grandmother’s pearl earrings, Molly never went anywhere without them, and her….. What?!? Where was it?

I frantically searched for the simple cross I had given her on our wedding day. She refused to ever take it off. As I turned, I noticed it sitting in the nightstand beside her. In the chaos of the day I must have forgotten to put it back on her as I laid her out.

I adjusted the candles at both ends of the bed and straightened the scarf covering the mirror in our room.

Now we are ready, I thought to myself. But am I really ready?

As the day wore on I was instantly drawn back to the days of our youth. She had been everything to me; wife, mother, best friend…. I can’t imagine my life without her.

“To Molly!!” I shouted as I raised my pint in my beautiful wife’s honor. “An amazing woman was she. Never one to think of herself first, a romantic and lover of life. A feisty lass with a really great ass! Sláinte!!”

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Head Ant challenged me with “How would you like to be remembered when you are gone?” and I challenged Grace O’Malley with “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him standing under the street light…”.

What a day, I thought as I placed my purse on the table and fell into my favorite overstuffed red chair. Horus quickly pounced, seeking his daily dose of affection, and began to nuzzle and purr in my lap. I attempted to kick off my shoes but my feet and ankles were too swollen from standing all day at the museum.

“Sigh…. Well I guess they will just have to stay on for now Horus.”

As I leaned back to put my feet up, a striking blow to my right side sent me bolting upright and sent poor Horus flying to the floor with a thud. I rubbed my side and was greeted with another round of attacks. Obviously the baby was trying to stretch and was not enjoying the small confines of my womb.

“Seriously kid, you’re killing me!”

I began to mindlessly rub my over-sized belly, pondering just what the contents contained. We had decided to wait and not find out the gender of the baby, but with the due date quickly approaching, my imagination was getting the best of me.

A sudden clatter from the other room quickly snapped me out of my internal baby gender debate. “Horus – is that you? What did you get into now!?”

I heaved myself out of the chair and began to make my way down the dark hallway. The sound of ‘someone’ humming made me stop in my tracks. Jack was in New York till the end of the week and last I checked, Horus couldn’t hum. I felt around for something to arm myself with when a voice greeted me, “Well hello there Molly!”

I tried to scream but all that came out was a hushed “Aack!”

“Oh now, now. Don’t worry. I’m not here to do you any harm.”

I slid along the wall searching for the light switch, still not able to see the man who was talking to me. I finally found the switch and flicked it on but no one was there.

“So Molly, let’s…..”

“Aaah!”

There before me was a …. well, I am actually not quite sure. While he was small like a dwarf, he had a very thick muscular body, full beard and well, a tail.

“Who are you?” I queried.

The dwarf did a little dance, spun around and said, “I’m Bes of course!”

Bes….? My mind reeled back to my graduate studies of Egyptian art. Surely he must be joking. “Bes…. as in the God of Childbirth?”

“The one and only,” he said with a bow.

I began to slowly rub my temples. This was not covered in any of the pregnancy books I had been reading. ”But, but….. I don’t understand. Why are you here? How are you here? Man – I must really be overtired!”

“I am here to protect you and will soon be on my way.”

“Protect me? Protect me from what??”

The sounds of shattering glass echoed through the house as loud footsteps began to move around the kitchen.

Bes unhinged his knife and began to head towards the kitchen. He turned and looked at me with a sly smile. “It has been my pleasure!” he called over his shoulder. And with that, he was gone.

 For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Cedar challenged me with “A chance encounter with the Egyptian god, Bes” and I challenged Dafeenah with “A reporter arrives in town and starts asking strange questions”.