"Killing Alec"

This is the beginning of a story "Killing Alec" (it is inspired by Donald Barthelme's story "Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Fried Colby")

Use this to create your own work (due next Monday). You can do this in whatever way you like:

a. keep the text exactly as it is and write an ending to the short story. The result will be a collaborative work between you and me.

b. borrow the premise that you use in your own story/poem/essay/digital art

c. create an equally ridiculous premise in your own story/poem/essay/digital art

d. create a completely different premise in your own story/poem/essay/digital art

Directions: Write your story in a Google Doc with a shareable link. Post this link as a comment below before class on Monday Oct. 19.

"Killing Alec" by Dr. Marquardt

Of course Alec had been cheating on me. He had been cheating on all of us: Caroline, Anje, Tiffany and me. So we decided to kill him.

Caroline and I had figured it out sitting next to each other on a full bus, both of us playing on our phones. It was a city bus. I might have been sitting next to anyone.

“That looks like my boyfriend,” she told me as I flipped through photos of Alec. She looked more closely. “That is my boyfriend.”

There was some brief hostility, but we calmed down. We even had coffee, compared notes, and decided to take out an ad in the newspaper to see if there were more of us. Several women responded, but Anje and Tiffany were the only ones willing to meet. We suspect there are more.

Alec didn’t deny it. “My love is big,” he said. “One person can’t contain it.”

“Bullshit,” we said. He admitted that it was, though he still preferred not to die.

“It’s not that grave an offense,” he said.

“It is,” we said. And then Tiffany cited the Bible and that got us tangled up for a while. Anje offered the analogy of a dog, one that bit too many people and had to be euthanized. And everyone agreed that this was the better argument.

“She and I never dated.” Alec pointed at Anje, who shrugged. She had seen the ad. She was in it for the solidarity. We appreciated that. Alec thought it was nice, too.

“Would you like to die by firing squad?” Caroline asked. “Aureliano Buendia style?” And this irritated me because I thought reading Marquez to each other in bed was our thing, but I let it go for the cause.

Alec recalled some Monty Python skit in which a man was chased off the edge of a cliff by a herd of beautiful women wearing only helmets and knee pads. “That would be preferable,” he said.

But Anje nixed it on principle. “And besides,” she said. “There aren’t any cliffs around here.”

“How about a guillotine?” Tiffany offered. “It’s supposed to be painless.”

“Guillotines require kneeling,” I said. “Alec’s knees are bad.”

“They’ve gotten better since he started his prescription,” Caroline said. It turns out she was a pharmacist. That was how they met, actually.

“How about a manhunt?” Tiffany said. “Like those films you like.” And we all got pretty excited about this. Alec agreed that it was the best option.

To be sporting, we gave him a lot of leeway: anywhere in the world and a full day head start. We each kissed him and wished him luck. Then Anje drove him home because we suspected he might be in shock and not ok to drive.