Theodore Jerome Cohen is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.) Without further ado, here’s the winning story:
Douse
by Theodore Jerome Cohen
The two men stood in a field near Clear Lake, Iowa, early one February morning and watched as men from volunteer fire departments of several local jurisdictions doused flames from what remained of a V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza 35. The single-engine aircraft, which seated three passengers plus a pilot, had taken off hours earlier from the municipal airport in Mason City, less than 10 miles east of Clear Lake. The flight plan filed by the pilot indicated the plane’s destination was Moorhead, Minnesota. There were no survivors.
“Does anyone have a clue what might have happened?” asked one of the men.
His companion, Dion DiMucci, shook his head. “I put that question to the firefighter who passed us a few minutes ago. He didn’t have a clue . . . muttered something about the weather possibly having played a part—something about low-cloud cover. Whatever happened, he said, the plane came down hard!”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he said from what he saw, the plane must have banked steeply into the ground and cartwheeled across the field, ejecting some of the passengers along the way.”
The men stared at what remained of the aircraft for several minutes before the first man spoke again. “Ya know, “I could’ve been on that plane. It was a stroke of luck I wasn’t.
“Whaddaya mean?” DiMucci asked.
“Well,” replied Tommy Allsup, guitarist for Buddy Holly’s Winter Dance Party, “I lost a coin toss for a seat to Ritchie Valens.”
Well deserved!
Hooray! Your stories are always fantastic, Ted.