The Carrot Ranch Literary Community March 18, 2021, prompt challenge, in 99 words, no more, no less, is to “write a story that takes place a year later. It can be any year. Explore the past year or another significant passing of time to a character. Go where the prompt leads!” Check out Charli’s post. I previously reflected on this past year HERE. My response below, I assure you, is fiction. You have until Tuesday, March 23 to respond with your own 99 words at Carrot Ranch.
Putting By
She’d known it’d be best for him to go missing before he was missed. Leaving the keys and his packed bag, she’d slipped out of his truck. Then, masked of course, she walked a different route home, hooded against a chill spring wind. Should the truck ever be found the search would begin there, but disinterested authorities had quickly concluded that her husband had simply fled, fed up.
She wondered what she might prepare for dinner. Almost a year, but the chest freezer still contained plenty of stockpiled food, packets of meat, vegetables and casseroles concealing his frozen body.
ShiftnShake 
chilling in more than one way…(K)
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Ha!
This started out as a tale of how he was not a good one to be sheltered with in Covid times but that came in too long. Either way he ends up in the freezer, just fewer details and less backstory here.
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I’m sure there have been similar thoughts running through more than a few minds…
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Phew! It’s surprising to be relieved she’d killed him, but I was relieved she’d concealed his body and not eaten him. 🙂
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Intrigued… why are you relieved she’d killed him?
And no, no. Cannibalism is too much, even for me. I lived on Nantucket, but am not a Nantucketer. (see Heart of the Sea by Nat Philbrick for allusion; cribnotes: don’t get the short straw if you’re in the rowboat after being stove by a whale in the Pacific)
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Relieved that she’d only killed him and not eaten him. I find the thought of cannibalism more disturbing than murder obviously. 🙂
Never want that short straw. I think I pick it far too often.
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I was going to be pedantic about ‘disinterested’ vs ‘uninterested’ but the quality of the story took over, D. Would love to see the longer version.
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disinterested |disˈintəˌrestid, -tristid|
adjective
1 not influenced by considerations of personal advantage: a banker is under an obligation to give disinterested advice.
2 having or feeling no interest in something: her father was so disinterested in her progress that he only visited the school once.
DERIVATIVES
disinterestedly adverb.
disinterestedness noun
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: past participle of the rare verb disinterest‘rid of interest or concern,’ from dis- (expressing removal) + the verb interest.
usage: One of the most contended questions of usage is the difference between disinterested and uninterested. According to traditional guidelines, disinterested should never be used to mean ‘not interested’ (i.e., it is not a synonym for uninterested) but only to mean ‘impartial,’ as in the judgments of disinterested outsiders are likely to be more useful. Ironically, the earliest recorded sense of disinterested is for the disputed sense. Today, the ‘incorrect’ use of disinterested is widespread: around a quarter of citations in the Oxford English Corpus for disinterested are for this sense.
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I’m sticking with my word choice: see definition (2) above; it seems to be acceptable despite being disputable; see the irony noted above— traditionally it is correct; and finally, I like the sound of it better.
I will say that when I heard that “irregardless” was getting accepted as a word, I was outraged. My grammar isn’t perfect and never will be if we lower the bar too much.
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I’m glad if this version worked. Thanks.
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We certainly agree that the barbarians are at the gate and we need to be prepared to pour boiling oil on their lexicological sins. 😉 As reluctant as I am to cross metaphorical swords with a schoolteacher, call me foolhardy when I say that we need to have agreed words that signify the difference between ‘I couldn’t care less’ and ‘I am someone who has no stake in the game so I can be impartial’. So were the authorities in your story of a mind that they couldn’t care less or were they of the mind that, having assessed the facts impartially, they saw no reason to enquire further?
PS – In the interests of full disclosure, my delighted suprise today that my Letter to the Editor had been published in our State daily newspaper quickly turrned to chagrin when I read that I had written ‘with regards to’ in relation to the issue at hand.
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With the rise of domestic violence in the world, this story is very timely and chilly. Divorce would have been a better option for her:)
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Whew, D. That was a bit grisly. I can’t imagine that the police were disinterested, however, they’ve had their hands full, I’m sure with domestic violence as well as mob scene type violence. I’m not so sure that she won’t eat him at some point. After all, he’s still in there along with plenty of vegetables. This is the post I’m linking to your comment in Story Chat.
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https://kathy70.wordpress.com/2021/03/23/it-was-just-one-of-those-years-99-word/
Here is my contribution this week. Thanks.
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Kathy, thank you for coming by here for a read. I need to redirect you to Carrot Ranch though for your contribution. https://carrotranch.com/2021/03/19/march-18-flash-fiction-challenge-2/
You can put your flash in the form for publication tomorrow.
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A dark tale of what’s in the bottom of the freezer.
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A great murder mystery!
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