Part 5 by Felicia Aguirre
He snapped out of his memory just in time to answer the first question. A short, bald man with yellow teeth leaned forward in his seat, strumming his fingers against the podium in front of him.
"Do you know why you are here, Frederick M. Stevens?" he asked, and his hairy eyebrows bunched inquisitively on his forehead. Frederick took a deep breath and stared at the floor, deep in thought. Those days of working at the Toys-R-Us in Humptulips were long ago, and Frederick vaguely remembered how the events unfolded. He recalled Larry Seretty diving on the floor over the display of Easy-Bake ovens screaming, "Do a barrel roll!" Michael Piles slid down aisle eight on a Razor Scooter, and knocked Mark Evans to the floor.
The whole scenario ended in one giant fit of giggles, as the madman made his escape. Blinking back tears of laughter, Frederick saw the madman grab a grey stone out of the pet rock collection and run out of the store. The stone was not particularly unique. In fact, Frederick thought Larry had stolen it from the parking lot outside, and placed it in the bin as a joke.
They may know that he had committed the crime, but they had no way of anticipating that he had met a previous victim. If only he had taken the madman seriously.
Want to write the next paragraph to the story? Submit your paragraph to NDLFshortstory@gmail.com before 4 p.m. Sunday. Limit of 200 words. Title it Part Six. This story will continue until Nov. 16. If your paragraph is selected, it will be published in Viewpoint and you will get to read it at the NDLF panel discussion Nov. 19. The visiting authors will write the ending paragraphs. Take advantage of the opportunity to write a story along with three New York Times bestselling authors!
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
