Far Gone

By Mike Ramon

A short story. Susan Novak returns to a small Illinois town every year seeking answers about her daughter disappearance. This year, someone leaves a note under the door of her motel room: I know what happened to your daughter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Ramon
• Release date: Nov 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215030004

Mike Ramon

Born and bred in the Midwest.

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FAR GONE

Mike Ramon

© 2023 M. Ramon

Smashwords Edition

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I

The motel was less than a mile from the interstate, at the east end of town. Threadbare carpet the color of blueberries; a lamp; a mirror over a sink, the mirror marred by streaks; a toilet with a tank that seemed to perpetually fill with water unless one wiggled the handle; a small, cramped shower; a desk; inside the desk, a bible that someone has defaced with crude drawings (in more than one sense of the word); a bureau; a bed, its bedspread pocked by cigarette burns; a television with no remote, the television having only a power button on it so that it can be turned on but is perpetually stuck on one channel.

It was her fifth night in the motel room and she was trying to decide if she was crazy like everyone said or if she was the last sane person on earth. She knew the odds of the latter were slim. If ten people stared at a coffee cup and nine of them said it was blue even though you saw that it was red, what are the chances that the other nine all have something wrong with their vision or are all under the same hallucination concerning the color of coffee cups? Wouldn’t it be simpler to accept that you are the wrong one?

I can’t wallow with you.

That’s what Charlie had said on the day he told he their marriage was over, that he couldn’t wallow with her. But wasn’t he supposed to wallow, if wallowing was what was needed? For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and darling, I will wallow with you, I will never let you wallow alone.

Susan had been hurt but not at all surprised when he left.

On the TV, one the one channel she could get, a reality show was airing. The sound was low and there were no volume buttons on the TV, so she would barely have been able to make out what the