Collaboration

The following is a short story collaboration with a friend. It was written for a short story competition and won first place. The first half was written by my partner, and the second half was written by myself. The prompt was to begin the story with the phrase, "Not until she had opened the final box did she realize she had made a terrible mistake." Enjoy.

Part I

Not until she had opened the final box did she realize she had made a terrible mistake. This wasn’t what she was looking for was it? After all this time, it couldn’t be this?

She wakes up. It is later than she remembers it being. Too late. She has a deadline.

Her name is Barb. She has been on the force for 10 years now, and she never thought she’d be here. As a little girl, she wore pink dresses and pretended dust clouds were butterflies. The boys called her Billy Jean. Ten years, and the title on her NYPD badge is all she can remember responding to.

There is something she has forgotten. A case. An important case. Shit – Why did she sleep so long? She remembers the faces on the family in the news. Their daughter dead. Her life’s work in black and white print. She turns on her computer.

It feels like small eternities, rifling through files. Unsolved murder. Cold case. Cold beer and cigarette butts. She doesn’t remember daylight anymore. Just nightlong searching. Longing. The sound of a gunshot on the television. The smell of concrete in the rain.

Her father always warned her against the ones that get away. Sometimes they get away. It’s not your fault. Sometimes they get away and there’s nothing anyone can do. The black and white faces fade into words on a headstone, and headlines become eulogies that no one will remember 10 years from now.

Part II

What was she looking for? Right. Case files. They were here somewhere. She moved from her desk to the corner of the room where box upon box sat waiting for her eager eyes and fingers. Dust covered the tops of the cardboard. This shouldn’t have taken so long. This should have been finished years ago. No family should have to go this long without an answer.

She smelled rain again. Rain on blacktop. She paused her rifling of papers and looked up. It was still dark outside. Hours had passed and still no sign of daylight. The smell of rain grew stronger.

She continued searching through the files. More time passed, still nothing. It was a constant cycle of searching that yielded nothing. Barb sat down at her desk again, completely despondent. Maybe there really wasn’t anything here. Maybe it was too late. Maybe she had missed her chance, missed something important. Maybe it was all awash in the oncoming rain outside.

She went back to the files. It wasn’t all lost. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t all be for nothing. Out of the corner of her tired eyes, she saw another file box. The sides were wet. She opened the top to see drenched sheets of paper. This was important. She felt it. This would change everything. She combed through what was still readable, what hadn’t been damaged by the rain.

She felt damp. Why did she always feel damp? Her fingers were slick with water droplets and her hair clung in matted strands about her face. Was she dreaming again? She turned around and she was no longer in her office. No longer at her desk. No longer searching. No longer in the dark.

She felt it hit her chest. A spray of lead. Warm blood seeped through her blouse. She fell to her knees, gasping for air. She lay on the ground for hours. No one would find her for days. The rain beat down and washed away the red. She was dead.

Case files. Unsolved murders. Clarity. A continuous cycle of searching and finding nothing. Barb closed the box and sat at her desk. She understood. She knew why the answers weren’t there. She wasn’t there. She never had been.

Not until she opened the final box did she realize she had made a huge mistake.