HONORABLE MENTION, Winter 2024
The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition
BY WILLIAM WEISSINGER
“I‘ll get you a cup of tea, Mom,” I said. “We need to talk.”
She was rocking in her great-grandmother’s rocker. This rocker had a quirk. One of the stretchers ( the pieces of wood that join the front legs to the back legs) has been loose in its socket since before I was born. Each time she rocked backward, the stretcher pulled out of its socket. Each time she rocked forward, it jerked back into place with a loud snap.
She was at home in the rocker. It had been passed down to her grandmother, to her mother, and then to her—and ever since she divorced my father and moved in with me, the rocker had been here, in my house, with her.
She didn’t reply, just rocked back and forth.
Snap Snap Snap
One would think I’d get used to the noise. But I always knew it was coming. I’d wait for it. Like a leaky faucet, but louder.
Snap Snap Snap
I had to hear it. I had to hear it again. I had to hear it again.
My father had tried to fix it. I tried twice.
Snap Snap Snap
She didn’t merely relax in the chair. She ate in the chair. She read the latest Stephen King book, watched reruns of old TV shows, and had her glass of Old Fashioned with an extra shot of bitters, all in the chair. She’d started sleeping in it.
Her eyes were staring off into space now, slightly unfocused, her long grey hair unkempt, her hands absently rubbing the arms that had turned blond, the brown finish rubbed off by the palms of generations of her ancestors.
She looked at me as I set her tea down beside her chair. I took a sip of the Scotch I’d poured for myself, and began.
“Remember when you moved in with me?” I said. “Ten years ago?”
Snap Snap Snap
“Moved in with me for a few months, to recover from your having divorced Dad?”
“He yelled at me,” she said. “Swore at me if the house wasn’t clean, if his clothes weren’t washed. ‘If you aren’t going to take care of the house, then get a job,’ he said. He never did respect me. And he knew I couldn’t work, I got tired so easily. I couldn’t stay with a man like that.”
“And remember,” I said, “how I agreed you could stay for six months, but then you needed to find your own apartment?”
Snap Snap Snap
“I’d just finished grad school. I needed to be on my own,” I said.
“It’s only right that a mother live with her son,” she replied. “That’s the way it always worked back in Clinton County. All those farmhouses you see that have been added onto two or three times? That’s because multiple generations of a family used to live together.”
Snap Snap Snap
“’Used to,’ Mom. That isn’t how modern families live any more. We’ve talked about this every year since you moved in.”
“Only right that a mother lives with her son.”
“You know the fastest land-speed record for mammals, Mom? The coyote, about 40 miles an hour. The jaguar, about 80. But the speed of departure of every single woman who has found out my mother lives with me? Too fast to measure. I need to get married, Mother, and I’ll never be able to do that if you’re living here.”
Snap Snap Snap
“I found an apartment for you.”
“No. No, you can’t do that. I’m your mother. Certainly not.”
Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap
She was breathing heavily, her breath rasping in her throat.
“I’m moving you out, Mother. Next week. Gather your clothes—or I will.”
“No!” she said. She stood. “NO! YOU CAN’T!” she shrieked. Then she caught her breath, one quick intake, and put her hand to her heart. “You’ve killed me, Robert!”
She fell back into her chair. A rivulet of blood ran from the corner of her lips down her chin. Her hand reached for her chin, wiped at the blood, then fell back limp onto the armrest.
I called 911, but I knew it was already too late. As the EMTs lifted her to put her on a gurney, her head tilted to one side, letting more blood spill out of her slack mouth.
After the EMTs left, I noticed that the blond wood of the armrest was blotched with her blood. And more had fallen onto the seat. Seeing her blood brought back, over and over, her last words: You’ve killed me, Robert!
I cleaned the blood off with dish soap. When a faint dark stain remained, I found a solution on the internet: baking soda and vinegar. Finally, the stains were gone.
That night I lay awake to the sound of the wind uneasy in the eaves. The moon, just past full, had risen as I undressed, and now my bedroom was moon grey, except when the wind pushed a cloud across its face.
I must have slept, because I awoke to a sound like the wind knocking a tree branch against the house. But we didn’t have any trees nearby. The sound was coming from downstairs.
I got up and went down to check it out. The moon showed the living room clearly.
I could see the chair rocking slowly back and forth.
Snap Snap Snap
No one was in it.
I approached the chair. Even in the moonlight I could see that the blond armrest had darkened. The blood was back. And she was back.
The chair began rocking faster, as it did when she was angry.
Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap
I flicked on the light.
“Nice try, Mom,” I told her, keeping my voice steady, “but I was going to get rid of that chair tomorrow anyway.”
A previous flash fiction piece by William Weissinger, “The Family China,” won the 2019 Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition. His short story, “The Good Boy,” was published in the Spring 2016 edition of The MacGuffin. His non-fiction articles have appeared in Sail Magazine and other publications. He’s been a columnist for a local newspaper, and he has published poetry, including in The Madrona Project’s The Empty Bowl Cookbook. Weissinger is also a sculptor, and you can see some of his work at by visiting WeissingerStudios.com. He lives in Friday Harbor, Washington.