[Critique Group 1] Submission for Critique, DeAnna

[DeAnna Noriega]

Here it is.

 

Warm Regards,

DeAnna Quietwater Noriega

It contains 444 words.

 

The List

 

Dolly pulled the magazine, Sunday Supplement and a torn envelope from where
they had wedged down between the desk and the wall. Myra could be such a
slob about things. She never bothered to dump discards in to a waste basket.
She just piled them in stacks on the arms of chairs, corners of tables and
wherever she happened to be. Eventually, if Dolly didn't clear them away,
the piles teetered and slithered to the floor. For thirty years now it had
been a minor irritation. They had moved in together when Myra got a divorce
and Dolly needed someone to help make the mortgage payments on the house her
mother had left her.

 

At work, they had gotten along so well. Dolly's attention to detail balanced
Myra's ability to think outside the box. They had shared so much over time.
Dolly was too shy and Myra too disillusioned to allow any men in their
lives. There had been no possibility of children. As old age overtook them,
they had only each other. They shared favorite books, took little jaunts
together on their vacations. They devoted their energies to church and
charitable activities.

 

Now that they were both retired, it seemed they could do nothing but pick at
each other and squabble. They had become like some bizarre old married
couple.

 

Dolly glanced down at the envelope and a feeling of uneasiness settled like
indigestion in her stomach. It was nothing of course, just a list. But what
could Myra want with:

Dry ice,

Garden hose,

Sleeping pills,

Hair dryer,

Granola,

Rat poison,

 

"Get a grip, old girl. You're being a complete fool! You've been reading too
many trashy mysteries."

 

Surely Myra wasn't angered as all that at Dolly's occasional carping about
her messiness? She couldn't possibly be contemplating adding rat pellets to
her granola? Myra wouldn't slip sleeping pills in her herbal tea, place
Dolly in her car and run a hose from the exhaust pipe then leave her to die
in the garage with the engine running; while she went out for her regular
Wednesday night bowling league. Myra wasn't thinking of putting dry ice
under Dolly's bed to evaporate and suffocate her with carbon monoxide,  or
dropping a hair dryer accidentally in to Dolly's  bath,  Was she? Well of
course not!

 

Still, perhaps it was time to sit down together and try to figure out some
mutually agreeable rules to make it easier to live with each other. Even
fast friends need to air their feelings and figure out how best to share a
home without turning the small stuff into reasons for making their home a
war zone.

 

 

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