{"id":12818,"date":"2023-11-17T01:32:53","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T01:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=12818"},"modified":"2023-11-26T16:12:03","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T16:12:03","slug":"cold-shoulder-by-hugh-cartwright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/cold-shoulder-by-hugh-cartwright\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Shoulder by Hugh Cartwright"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h2>\n

Cold Shoulder<\/h2>\n

by Hugh Cartwright<\/p>\n

Freshly dead, she was pinned to the desk by a knife. Smears of blood oozed between his fingers and dripped to the floor.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d been smart, loyal, an indispensable sidekick. Her high-speed repartee entertained visitors to the Maritime Museum far more than his plodding stories of buccaneer life. But gradually her wit slowed, her off-the-cuff one-liners lost their edginess, and her creativity fell away. Eventually, she did little more than posturing and strutting, occasionally whistling sea shanties at the visitors.<\/p>\n

As tourists began to desert the Museum, he knew that a younger, more vibrant partner was essential; without one, his role as the Museum\u2019s chief story-teller would be at an end. And yet he couldn\u2019t allow her to remain. This was home; he knew that she would always be hanging around, making life impossible for any newcomer. There was no alternative \u2013 she must die.<\/p>\n

He stroked her soft, cooling body, sighed, and tried to pull himself together. At last, he turned away and sat down. Time to move on.<\/p>\n

He took out his cell phone, took a deep breath and typed \u201cExotic birds\u201d. As his tears began to soak into the corpse he gasped: the price of a replacement Scarlet Macaw was impossibly high. His partner and his livelihood both gone in an instant.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Hugh lives in the Pacific Northwest, where writing provides a diversion from his doomed attempts to grow Canadian oranges. His stories have appeared in\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Nature Futures, Foxglove Journal, Meniscus, The Drabble, Grey Sparrow Journal, Flashes of Brilliance, Toasted Cheese<\/i><\/span><\/span>, and elsewhere.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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