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Overlapping Timelines

Thomas Elson

    At almost the exact moment – as men in nearly identical blue suits stepped out of their official car, grabbed a few boxes, walked across the snowy sidewalk, veered right, and pushed open the glass door to the man’s offices,
    Twenty-three miles to the east, the man’s ex-wife, and the mother of his child, was shoving graded papers toward the left corner of her desk so her students could pick-up their homework.

    At nearly the same time – as the men in blue nodded knowingly at the receptionist, then walked down the hallway, slapped a search warrant against the man’s left shoulder, tossed it on his desk, crammed papers into their boxes, then slammed him with a series of accusations hoping for some admission against interest,
    His daughter sat at her school desk down the hallway from her mother’s office, pulled out her homework to hand in to her third grade teacher.

    As if in unison – when the men in blue left the office and radioed the sheriff, the man rose from behind his desk, then drove away,
    His ex-wife rose and began the day’s lesson.

    That evening – as mother and daughter finished supper and prepared for the next day,
    The man cowered, hidden inside an abandoned shed, one quarter mile off a county road, one-half mile from the state highway, two miles from the Interstate, and eighty-seven miles away from the office the men in blue entered that morning. He sat atop a dusty bale of hay, looked toward the door, eased himself onto the wooden floor, leaned his back against the hay, and placed a loaded shotgun in his mouth.

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