This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “At the Zoo” Down in the Dirt v210 (8/23) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing in the book 2023 in a Flash the 2023 flash fiction & art collection anthology		get the 298 page flash fiction & artwork & photography collection anthology as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

The Littlest Narc Of Them All

Marc Colten

    I still wonder about the first time Ellen Farmer stamped her little foot, screamed “I’m telling!” and ran off to inform on a total stranger. It must have been when she was very young. Maybe she saw someone tasting a grape in the Produce department without paying. Or maybe their car was parked over the line a few inches into a Handicapped spot. In any case that might have been her first opportunity to inform on someone she didn’t know and I never saw anyone who enjoyed ratting people out more than her.
    Of course, most behaviors start at home and her informing probably started there as well. She was the third child of four which may have deprived her of informing on her infant sister, at least for a few years, but her two older siblings certainly provided her with enough opportunities. A few pornographic magazines hidden under her brother’s mattress, forbidden cigarettes in her sister’s dresser. Her head must have exploded when they started using Marijuana and she could run to their parents with the location of their secret stashes. They might have tried turning it back on her, but as far as I can tell, she just didn’t do anything wrong. No drugs, no alcohol or any other forbidden pleasures could compete with the sheer thrill of informing on people.
    I’ve taken the time to visit local stores and businesses and they all knew her. They’d look down their aisles and see her coming and think “Jesus, what now?” They listened to her because they had to know what their customers and even their employees were up to but they didn’t have to like her. If she only turned in shoplifters that would have been okay but informing on people who had already left the store after using the code of a cheaper fruit at the self serve checkout really didn’t pay for their time. The rest of their offenses were just the run of the mill annoyances of retail.
    The teachers and administrators of her schools hid beyond confidentiality but the way they rolled their eyes told me volumes. She was a social pariah, which didn’t bother her since she was the teacher’s pet for turning in cheaters. On the other hand the principal didn’t really care which cheerleaders were having sex with which football players but when she turned in the players for steroids it cost them their chance at a State title. By the time she graduated she didn’t have a friend in the school.
    Some behaviors baffled me. What was her father thinking when he took her to “Take Your Daughter To Work Day”? He had an older daughter, yet 12 year old Ellen was the one he took to his office. Had she gone from desk to desk, informing on lovers to spouses and workers to their supervisors? If so, where did she get such knowledge? Did her father have some sort of corporate death wish? Did he shoot his mouth off at home, talking about the follies of his co-workers? Her father wound up leaving the job only three months later.
    No surprise she never married. Who would even go on a second date with a woman who followed up your first date by passing on your careless revelations? How many men instantly regretted blaming their breakups on their former girlfriends only to get angry phone calls from them?
    She went to work right after high school. Even if she was smart enough to get into college I assume the admissions office were horrified by her application essays. Reading that their college was founded by slave owners and owed the slaves reparations or that fraternities had held secret sexual ceremonies by the light of the full moon must have been pretty unsettling.
    Snitching on coworkers has always been a common sport but you have to carefully choose your targets. When she was hired at a construction firm and tallied up the no-show hours and kickbacks it did not help at all. The boss didn’t mind, he had to put slackers on the payroll to keep the company running, but the men who decided who would get those jobs and then got the bribes were a different matter entirely.
    It was so tangled and she informed on so many people that I had to tell the Captain again that we may never know who killed her.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...