"Paum" - Murder/Mystery/Thriller Short Story - 13+

"Paum" - Murder/Thriller Short Story

"Paum"
[Mystery]
[Inspired by: "Lamb To The Slaughter.." by Roald Dohl]

Over the course of 14 years, Angela Behar has come up with a number of ways to say the word, "meat". She has gathered synonymous vernacular; ways to say it so that whenever she looked down at her plate, the crippling guilt wouldn't come back. It worked. Of course, it worked, to a point. Anything that wasn't blatantly the word "meat", worked. The issue was the fact that after not calling it meat for 14 years, she has started to forget what it actually was.

It was now , "Paum".

Over the course of 14 years, everyday at 6:00pm, she would sit down at her table alone. 9 seats, always unoccupied. She placed on each seat a plate of paum and talked a slow, low voice, so that Andrew could understand her. She did just as Emmit had told her to: She covered her mouth while she spoke and laughed quietly, ways guarding her cherry red lipstick with a hanky.

Emmit would have loved her, now.

She waited and watched Andrew and Emmit's plate of paum.

Over the course of 14 years, Angela Behar has sat at her oblong table for 10 and stared into the cold dark room, and filled it with Andrew and Emmit. She figured that if she cast their shadows into her mind and she ate, the paum didn't taste like his cologne whenever she put it inside her mouth. And it worked.

To a point.

Angela stood up from the table, Andrew and Emmit, always forgotten, Angela picked up each plate of untouched paum. She smiled real big and walked real slow to the fridge where all the paum was kept.

Over the course of 14 years, Angela Behar had continued to use dinner with Emmit and Andrew as a reason to continue to cut up her paum. Her giant smile turned into a laugh when she opened her fridge and stared at it.

Red ink poured from the creases of wrapped tin-foil cases she had created of paum.

Her laugh reduced to a giggle as Anglea Behar left to her room, leaving 2 plates of paum behind on the kitchen island.

Over the course of 14 years, Angela Behar has worn bright red clothing to stare at the paum in the fridge.

She placed on a long red dress, put on red heels and tied her hair with a sparkling red ribbon.

She walked slowly, as if viewing a body at a funeral.

Over the course of 14 years, Angela Behar has worked as a mortician at Northside Furneral Home.

Over the course of 14 years, Angela Behar has collected 14 casings of paum, all cut and frozen into her fridge.

Over the course of 14 years, 14 funerals have been cancelled due to the horrendous and mysterious missing cases of dead bodies.

Over the course of 14 years, lived Angela Behar.