Short Stories

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Shortly after my wife and I were married we found an old farmhouse out in the country in central Illinois. We couldn’t wait to move in and start fixing the place up. We painted and put in a garden and brought home a dog to liven the place up a bit. I had a friend who was in the trucking business and he gave me a huge tire rim, that I buried in the yard as a fire pit. Jill and I would spend almost every night sitting out by the fire enjoying each other’s company. We found ourselves counting the minutes at our jobs because we couldn’t wait to get home. Well about 10 months later the fruit of our spending so much time together showed up, in the form of a beautiful little baby girl.
My dog Gibraltar, who up to this point had spent almost as much time with us, could not for the life of him figure out why this new little puppy had our undivided attention. Why this new pet actually got to sleep in the house and was petted and held constantly.
So Gibraltar set off to best this new little intruder by bringing me home the biggest Possum he could find.
As he stood on the front porch one evening, standing tall and barking proudly, he presented me with his gift. His way of letting me know that he was still the number one dog around here. So I showered him with praise and biscuits as I scooped up the gnarled trophy with my work gloves, and we both headed for the fire pit. I dropped the comatose chew toy into the pit and went back to the garage for some gasoline and matches. Well we ended up making several trips, hauling old lumber and burnable trash, before I finally got around to stoking up this funeral pyre.
In the meantime Jill & our little baby were sitting in the rocking chair in our front room, doing their best impersonation of a Norman Rockwell painting.

I struck the match and dropped it. As the gasoline let out a bright yellow whoosh, a small flaming rocket shot out of the side of the fire pit like a NASA Missile gone astray. What seemed like eternity was actually just a split second as I realized the poached possum was heading for the fence line on our property, which was loaded with explosively dry brush and trees.
In that moment I pictured a wall of flame and our local Volunteer Fire Fighters battling the inferno and me having to explain a very unbelievable story.
My dogs howling brought me back to reality as he took off after his home-cooked meal with me hot (pardon the pun) on his heels. Sure enough the roasted rodent set the brush on fire. I quickly jumped into the middle of the fire, ripped my shirt off and began to pummel and stomp the fire out. After several moments of frantic flame fighting I had the fire extinguished as well as the possum. He ran off cursing his instincts, my dog wandered off hungry and I trudged up to the house in shock.
I stepped into the soft glow of our living room looking like a smokejumper from the Pacific Northwest covered in sweat and ashes and holding a smoldering T-shirt.
I cannot describe the look on my wife’s face. Even to this day there are no words that can paint that picture.

And now whenever we see a possum she will give me a sideways glance and check to make sure there are no matches’ around.

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