Blast from the Past # 1: Ah Love, Let Us Be True To One Another

I think this is the oldest short (short short) story of mine that I still have a copy of. It was originally written for an Introduction to Writing Essays course I took my first year of university (the long, long year spent at the University of Waterloo). I loved that course and it, along with the Literature of Science Fiction and Fantasy course I took the following year at the University of Western Ontario, remain my favourite courses of all that I ever took.

As I recall, the assignment for this essay was to work on transitional segues to start each subsequent paragraph. See if you can spot the oh-so-subtle way I pulled that off (cringe). Oh, and the title for the essay was given to the class (everyone wrote an essay with the same title). Each author got to interpret it in their own unique way, though... And this story features another hallmark of my writing at the time, but I'll leave that up to the loyal reader to spot.


Ah Love, Let Us Be True To One Another

As you know, darling, I've long held that honesty is always the best policy. Lies and half-truths usually tend to snowball out of control and inevitably return to haunt a person at the most unexpected times. We've both seen it happen, many times. Therefore, love, let us be true to one another.

I have to confess that I have, in a few rare instances, intentionally mislead you, my dear. For example, that weekend that I said I was going away on a business trip was actually spent right here in town. I had some business to take care of, alright, but I didn't think that you'd approve.

It was during that same weekend, in fact, that I learned that you had not been true to me. I had had my suspicions, of course, but I'd hoped that I was simply being foolish and paranoid. I followed you when you left the house that Friday night, and saw your little rendezvous with your tennis instructor, Marcel. (I must say you're taking all of this quite calmly.) I even know that you spent the entire weekend with him, because I followed the two of you everywhere you went.

The first two instances of our not being true to one another led directly to tonight's little falsehood. You see, the basement light wasn't really burned out. I removed the bulb while you were in the shower this morning, right after I loosened the railing at the top of the stairs. You certainly made quite a racket on your way down.

So now you know why I had to kill you. Your death can be blamed on the fact that we were not true to one another. Had you informed me of your passions before you acted on them, maybe we could have arranged a quiet divorce. But to catch you in the arms of another man, ah, dear husband, that was more than any wife could bear!