Trust

Trust

Like an ice-cream cone, 
neglected in a child's hand,
It all melts away...

Happy?

Birds sing in the trees
all happily unaware
without consciousness

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Disappointing

 Disappointing

A punch to the gut:
the job will disrupt far more
than it stands to fix.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Clean Fun

 Betsy left the office crying. Everything that could have gone wrong in that interview did go wrong, and it was the first time an interviewer had told her during the interview that they would be going with other candidates. 

As she walked through the lobby, just before the escalators, she saw a janitor struggling to move a step large ladder by himself. She paused, and tears still in her eyes, picked up one side of the step ladder and waited for him to take it in the direction he needed to take it. 

The man looked at her for a moment, and then moved the ladder over to just under a light fixture that was slowly blinking its light.

After setting the ladder in place, he turned to her. 

“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said. “But why would you help me?”

“Well,” Betsy shrugged. “I dunno. I was always told to treat the janitor the same as you would a CEO, and you just looked like you needed some help.”

“You believe that, do you?” He asked.

“Yes,” Betsy replied. She gave him a small smile. “Besides, I am having a bad day, so I may as well help someone else before they have a bad day.”

“What is your name?” 

“Betsy.”

“Well, Betsy, I’m Joe,” he said. “As it happens, I am the CEO of this company. I have done this test on every single applicant that has come through today, and you are the only one who stopped to help me!”

“Really?” She sniffled, and wiped at her eyes.

Joe gave her a warm smile and patted her shoulder. 

“Really,” he said softly. “I know from your tears that you think you didn’t do so well, but I make the final call on all hires. I need more people like you on my team. I want you here tomorrow when these doors open at six AM to start the first day of your new career! Can you do that?”

Betsy beamed at him, and grabbed at his hand.

“Yes! Yes!” She enthusiastically shook his whole arm. “I will be here! Thank you, sir!”

Joe watched as she walked quickly over to the escalator and went down, before she reached the bottom, she turned to wave at him. 

She raised her cellphone to her ear, he could just barely hear her voice. “I got it! You will never believe…”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

Joe turned to see Dayle standing there with more light bulbs. He grinned. 

“That makes three this quarter,” Joe said. 

“The last guy almost got wasted by Security when he kept demanding to see the CEO who hired him for watering a plant.”

“First off, it was the plastic ferns over by the elevators, Dayle," Joe said. "Besides, doesn’t it piss you off that they act like we are some sort of untouchables who deserve public displays of compassion to make themselves feel better?”

“I don’t think about it,” Dayle said as he climbed the ladder. “I try to just do my job and go home.”

“Well, it pisses me off,” Joe said. “Besides, she touched my ladder.”

“Well, I am off tomorrow, so if there is another scene like last time, try to catch it on video for me and let me know what happens.”

Joe chuckled and was about to reply when he felt a tap on the shoulder. 

Joe looked at his shoulder before turning to see a man in a suit looking up at Dayle opening the light fixture. 

“You need any help with that?”

Joe smiled. “What is your name?” 

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Denial's Due

 Denial's Due

What powerlessness in a failing grasp!
Unable to hold for a simple task,
without flittering away, distracted!
Day to day life becoming impacted,
altering the most basic lifestyle,
Yet, loved ones close their eyes in denial:
It's just been a rough day, or a rough week,
It’s just exhaustion that hides what you seek,
Those words, and memories, faces and names,
They hide deep in the shadows all the same,
Showing themselves with the tiniest slips,
But not enough for the tongue or the lips…
And it just gets worse in denial’s wait,
Until it’s acknowledged… often too late. 

Writer's Morning

A cup of coffee
on the table by my notes,
helping me along.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved

Three Percent

 Three Percent 

There was a small amount of pressure before the tooth gave, and his jaw felt like it was on fire. The taste of copper filled his mouth, and he gave an agonizing scream that gave way to coughing as he started choking on his own blood.

The man standing before him stared at him intently, holding the needle nose pliers out to show the tooth that was clasped within its grip.

Beside him, his wife was looking the other way, sobbing around the cloth gag the man had tied to her face.

“This would be a whole lot simpler if you would just tell me where it is,” the man said with a bored tone. “I may even let you go.”

Murphy gathered the blood in his mouth and spit it towards the man. The majority of it fell upon himself and the concrete floor of his own basement, but some splattered across the man’s face.

“I can not promise that my offer to spare you will last,” the man said as he turned to put the pliers on the table behind him. “Tell me where it is, and we can move on.”

The man removed his glasses and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away the blood.

Murphy stood as best he could, being tied to his chair, and charged the man. For a brief moment, the man actually showed something other than boredom on his face. His eyebrows went up, and his mouth went to say something that was cut off as the top spire of Murphy’s chair pierced his chest.

As they slammed into the stone wall of the basement, the spire pushed through the man, and hit the wall, putting just enough pressure on the wood to splinter it where the back met the arm. His arm still tied to the arm rest, but now free to move around, Murphy pulled it back across his chest before swinging it down on the throat of the still astonished looking man.

That morning, he had falsely presented himself as a man wanting to buy the Truck that Murphy had listed on marketplace. Hours later, which seemed like an eternity with the torture that he had subjected Murphy and Lanore to, he had admitted that the deed to the house was his goal. He was going to use it to present himself as the new owner, having “bought” it from Murphy and his wife who then would “move on”. No purchase, no contract, just good old-fashioned land theft, and no one would be the wiser without Murphy and his wife to say otherwise.

Now, the man sat with his back against the wall, his own blood pooling from the chair spire still in his chest, and the splinter filled gash on his neck from the armrest, still staring at Murphy in disbelief.

Murphy used his free hand to untie himself from the remnants of his chair, before running to Lanore to free her. Lanore stopped screaming and ventured a peek to see the man dying on the floor.

She leapt to Murphy’s arms, and hugged him, sobbing again. She pulled away and then hit his shoulder.

“Why didn’t you just tell him where the deed was?” She screamed. “He ripped your tooth out! What were you thinking?!”

“Good point,” Murphy said. He looked down at the table and picked up his tooth from the grasp of the pliers. He winced at the sight of it. With a slow sigh, he dropped it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

Murphy then shook his head and grabbed one of the knives on the table the man had lain out to intimidate the couple with. He then sat in Lanore’s chair and kept an eye on the man.

“Go upstairs and call 911, and tell ‘em what happened,” Murphy said. “I am going to sit right here until they get here.”

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” She sobbed again. “He was going to kill us!”

“He was going to kill us either way, baby doll,” Murphy replied. “Besides, we bought this land with 3 percent interest. I ain’t going nowhere.”

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved