5 Jan 2013
(Friday Flash Fiction on The One-Minute Writer (oneminutewriter.blogspot.com). Prompt
is “The Confession":
You relax into your seat, book in hand, as your plane takes off. The stranger sitting next to you fidgets - he has seemed unusually nervous. A few moments later, you feel his hand on your arm. You turn to see his eyes pleading with you.
"I'm not supposed to speak to anyone," he begins, "But I have to clear my conscience.")
My eyes narrowed and I started feeling tense also. “Why do
you need to clear your conscience?”
“I’ve started something that’s spinning out of control, and
it’s eating me up.” He went on to explain he was a CPA who managed investments
for a number of wealthy families. He had tried to boost one account’s returns
with a risky move that didn’t work out. It was easy enough to cover that with
money from another account, but soon he was shuffling money all around to make
the books look okay. With the recent drop in the stock market, it was
unraveling.
“I think at least one of the families has, you know,
connections”, he said. “I’m meeting my attorney in Chicago this afternoon. I
don’t think anyone is on to me yet, at least I hope not. He thinks we might be
able to work something out. Said not to talk about it, but it’s killing me. I
just wanted to tell someone that I never meant any harm. I’ll make things right
if I can.”
I smiled and patted his arm, noticing the contrast between
my red nails and his light blue dress shirt. He relaxed a bit, although his
brow was nearly dripping with sweat.
“You know, it’s usually best owning up to things. I admire
you for trying to make it right. I’m sure it’ll work out OK.”
Wiping his brow, he glanced at the small gold cross I was
wearing and seemed to relax further. “You think so?”
“Yup. Positive.”
“Well, thanks for listening.” He leaned away toward the
window and closed his eyes.
I put my paperback in the bag and pulled out my laptop
instead. Connecting to the Gogo wireless took a couple of minutes. Once into my
Gmail account, I sent a carefully worded message to a colleague in Chicago,
then closed up the laptop and put it away.
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