Cal

Submitted By: Jerry D. White
Date: April 6, 2010
Genre: Flash Fiction
Word Count: 300
Title: Cal
Prompt: "It's even worse than I thought"


Don't ask me 'cause I don't know and there ain't none here 'bouts that knows or if'n they do knows they ain't tellin'. We always thought Cal was a bit daft, so I guess now we knows for sure. Jus' yesterday Cal had half the folk in town down at the dike helpin' git him out. Nigh on a week ago it'd been the apple orchard, but gittin' Cal out that tree weren't hard 'cause it only took three of us and my ax. Back the first of November it was him and them punkins and Mollie taken care that all by herself. Well, today, jus' after sunup, Jake comes runnin' down the road that heads up Old Baldy. He was carryin' on like all get-out and by the time he pulled up in front of Johnston's store the whole town was lookin' to see 'bout the commotion. Everybody, that is, 'ceptin' for grannie. Well, Jake got to stutterin' and all he could do was point back up t'ward Old Baldy and say C..C..C..C..C..C...al. The whole town took off up that road and when we got 'most to the top of Old Baldy, there was Cal. It was like that mountain swallered him right up to his chin whiskers. Big oled tears were runnin' down his face and he was babblin' like a baby. 'Bout that time the crowd parts and there's grannie lookin' down on Cal with those big black eyes of hers, and Cal commences to tellin' her how sorry he is and how he'll do anything she wants. Grannie jus' turns her back on poor ole Cal and heads back down the hill. That's when Johnston, still watchin' that old witches back like the rest of us'ns, whispers to me, “It's even worse than I thought.”