A SHORT SHORT STORY - EDWARD

EDWARD
by JACK TOM

For the last seventeen years, Edward had woken up and dressed and gone down to the coffee shop two blocks away from his apartment. But this past Tuesday was different. Edward woke up and dressed but didn’t go to his coffee shop. He instead got into his car and drove down to the local hardware store and went inside. He’d only been into that hardware store a handful of times and nobody there recognized him.
He found the isle which had work gloves and he pulled on two rubber gloves and then went to another isle, the one with the axes and hammers. He picked out an axe and went up to the counter. A man was behind the register, his hand on the counter. Edward raised the axe and brought it down onto the man’s hand, cutting off his fingers.
The man yelped and yanked his fingerless hand back towards his chest and he screamed, “what he hell’d you do that for?”
Edward beamed and smirked and replied, “For the last seventeen years I’ve woken up in the morning and gone out for a coffee and over my coffee I’ve thought about coming in here and pulling this off. It’s too bad for you that you were the one working the register.”