Minute

CHRISTY G THOMAS MINUTE

Susan delicately pinned up a last strand of hair into the cluster of rosettes at the back of her head. After so many years and so many mornings, she could finish her hair in less than twenty minutes.

At precisely 7:15, she sat at her kitchen table, scraping up the last bits of one poached egg, one slice of dry rye toast, and one-half cup of cottage cheese.

Eyed her watch. Checked it against her ear to make sure it was still ticking.

Patted her carefully lined lips. Smudges of dusty mauve speckled her napkin.

“Well,” she sighed to the wallpaper, “time to get going.”

She locked up her two bedroom cottage. Turned the key – one, two, three times, a shiny clutch under her arm.

One-two-three-one-two-three – she numbered her waltzing pace, metronome legs swinging down the walkway.

“Daisy” – her ‘88 Plymouth Horizon, powder blue – waited in the driveway like a sleeping housecat curled up in the morning light. Daisy had been in Susan’s life since high school, and as she started its engine, she smiled at the car’s predictable purr.

“If there is one thing I’ve learned,” she glanced back and forth between the road in front of her and the rearview mirror, “is to take things in stride and overwhelming grace. I’d like to thank the few who

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believed in me. And for the many who did not, you can all rot. In Hell.”

She cackled, teasing her bangs back into their proper place.

Fifteen minutes to work and fifteen minutes coming home from work. Always practicing her acceptance speech or a Today Show interview.

For what?

Nothing in particular.

But Susan simply knew that someday someone would give her an award for something.

Don’t I deserve it?

She conscientiously observed the world through glass filters. Her windshield, television, computer screen, sunglasses.

She always tuned in. Always made sure to set her DVR to the appropriate times and stations, content to snuff out life with the push of a button. She was just as good, if not better, than the people she saw on screen. Actors, reality stars, faces in the news.

Although, Susan hoped that no one would skip past her one minute of electric-candy fame.

But no one would miss that anyway, now would they?

Everyone would be so entranced by what she had done that they wouldn’t dare miss her moment with the world.

Maybe I’ll write a novel. Perhaps I’ll take up painting.

She smiled into the rearview, picked at her front teeth, and dislodged a stray curdle of cottage cheese. “There, better.”

Stereo tuned to her favorite morning talk program, she wound through traffic at comfortable pace, maintaining the posted speed limit while also staying out

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of everyone else’s way. She imagined herself careening through the perilous roadways in her mind.

“Meanwhile, in Sudan, UN workers continue attempts at…” the program blared to the world’s deaf ears.

All deaf but Susan.

IfIcouldonly findthe time, Iwoulddo somethingabout that business in Africa.

The announcer continued his story.

“What a shame,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Damn shame. I mean darn shame.”

Daisy puttered down the road, back window framed in bumper stickers for every cause that made up her relations. Ribbons for awareness and canned sayings shouting in sun-bleached colors – all littering the window. A tiny square was left in the middle through which she could still view traffic. Others could look and see her if they tried, and she could also see them if only she would turn around and look.

Down Chicago Lane she cruised with the hill’s grade, taking her normal route.

What she saw in her rearview mirror was anything but routine. A chiseled jaw was hunkered over handlebars. His head seemed to hover right over her newest bumper sticker that read: “Mrs. Baggins.”

He gave her thumbs up.

She waved back.

“What a strange man,” she muttered. Turning back to her own image in the rearview mirror, she checked her bangs and lipstick, but ignored her blushing cheeks.

Of all the bizarre –

She hit the brakes.

Daisy fishtailed on the damp asphalt and came to a

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halt.

“Good night!” she spouted at the near fowl-versuscar collision. A cluster of ducklings had meandered through the congested lane.

Impatient honking surrounded the two-door hatchback. But Susan took a moment to check herself to make sure she was okay. Her clutch had flown off the passenger seat and into the wheel well. She leaned as far as she could to reach for it, awkwardly unbuckling her seat belt to close the final few inches between her fingertips and the cream and gold case.

Tap-ta-tap-tap. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

“Wh-what the –” Scrambling upright, Susan came face-to-face with a stout woman tapping at her driver’s side window. The woman’s snout was an inch from the glass, her breath intermittently fogging up the window. The woman turned away and yelled to an unseen person, “She’s okay!”

Then Susan remembered.

The ducklings!

She swung the door open, managing to nail the woman in the kneecaps. After muttering an apology, Susan slid from her car, carefully stalking toward the ducklings that still waddled in the road. She crouched down as best as she could in her pencil skirt, arms widespread to shoo the fluffs of yellow and brown to safety.

“Ohhhhh, little duckies!” She swung her arms and upper body like a gigantic duck-repelling satellite dish.

“Gooooooo… yeeeeeesss…”

The ducklings quacked and fluttered away from her, furtively glancing back with each step. Still, the mother duck was not in sight. Susan steered them from her lane

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and across the stalled oncoming traffic. The ducklings veered toward the station wagon at the front of the pack.

“No, no, no!” she leapt before the ducks’ path. “This way. That’s right. Good. Just a little bit farther.”

The troupe came to the sidewalk’s edge, heads bobbing in confusion until Susan gave one final swing of her arms, frightening the ducks up to safety.

“There!” Susan proudly crossed her arms.

Where is their mother? She craned her neck to check down the road, but there was no luck. At the other side of the road she found her answer. A smudge of brown feathers in front of her car’s bumper.

“Oh, goodness!” She slapped her hand against her face.

What to do, what to do?

On the one hand, she would definitely be late for work if she took the orphaned ducklings to Feathered Friends on the other side of town. Then there was the other option, leaving the ducklings to fend for themselves and hope that someone else could help them out.

I can’t leave them. Even if she had to nurse the ducklings herself, she would make sure they did not come to the same fate as their mother.

At least not on her watch.

According to her watch, she was already going to be late for work as it was.

Need something to transport them in. She marched toward her car, remembering the box of books in her trunk that she kept forgetting to take to the Goodwill. Traffic remained at a standstill.

Maybe they’re also worried about the little ducklings? It’s nice to know there are still some decent people in the world.

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“Ma’am?” The woman who had been at Susan’s window stepped in front of her. “You better not go back there right now.”

She snapped at the rosy-cheeked barrier. “How else am I supposed to carry those sweet little things to Feathered Friends?”

She imagined the feel-good news story about her rescue of the ducklings on Chicago Lane. Tonight at six. With dreamy anchorman – Roger Wickshire. But that would have to wait until after the cardboard box and a final check of her face in the mirror.

As the woman stood speechless, Susan shoved past her to the back of her car. People huddled around her rear bumper. They glanced at Susan – some in disgust and others with sadness.

So I killed the mother when I wasn’t looking, but that doesn’t mean I’m a horrible person. Accidents happen, right? Susan continued to justify as she approached the fidgeting group.

“Excuse me!” she growled at the first person she met.

“I think it would be best –” the man began, but he stopped as Susan wedged past him.

“Can’t everyone just get out of my –”

The crowd parted before she could finish. She saw the group’s concern splayed on the damp asphalt.

His helmet askew. His bike twisted.

Susan hovered over her life’s one minute.

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