(Editor’s note: this is a flash-fiction by Daniel R. Jones, the editor-in-chief of Short Tale Shrew)
10-39
It was 1:27 a.m. when I awoke to a knock on our front door.
“Wasn’t Kaylee’s curfew midnight?” I asked my husband as I rose and peered through the blinds.
Two policemen wearing navy-blue peaked caps stood on our doorstep.
“It’s the police!” I told my husband.
“Are their hats on or off?” he asked, now sitting upright in the bed.
“Now what does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
But by the time I opened the front door, their hats were off.
Short Tale Shrew 
You tore my heart to shreds with this.
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Thank you. I believe subtlety is one key to emotional impact.
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A major key, at that
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That was well done and terribly tragic for the parents. I hope I got that right? We don’t wear hats in my part of the world.
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Sounds like you understood it completely. đ
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Heartbreak. This is amazing
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Thank you, Kristina.
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this is a wonderfully pervasively sad story, it creeps into my consciousness, I keep mulling it over, finding depths in it. Thanks for this Daniel.
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Thank you! I appreciate your kind words.
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I came across this by chance, you made me gulp, be still.
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Well put! Thank you for your encouragement.
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Every parent’s nightmare-short, sharp and heart breaking.
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How such simple and common words can carry such intense and heart-breaking stories.
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those were seven of the most well written, devastating lines. I wish children loosing their lives wasn’t a common affair.
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