Winning Entry

 "Change is Gonna Come" by Jay Gupta   

    The radio played. It promised change and love and blue notes. The old men sat on the porch
watching the rain. Their cigars burned in empty ashtrays. Smoke wafted through the screen door.
They spoke to each other in quiet promises. They spoke of dreams and hopes, of change, and love,
and blue notes.
    “This is it,” he said. Haystrand hair peeked from under a brim.
    “Like last week?” asked the one in overalls.
    “Forget last week.”
    The rain pattered on the canopy, a soft baptism washing away sins forgotten.
    “How about a drink?”
    “I don’t drink anymore.”
    “Mind if I do?”
    “This is your porch.”
    His friend went inside. He adjusted the button on his overalls. It snagged on the plaid of his
shirt. The man returned with bourbon.
    “Sal,” he asked his friend. “Do you remember Annie?”
    “Sure, I do. Your wife.”
    “I forgot her hair today.”
    “She was blonde, Tom. Wavy.”
    “My son took the pictures.”
    Sal liked the way the ice fell in the cool glass. He listened to it crack under a warm whiskey
blanket.
    “She lived a tragic, beautiful life,” said Sal.
    “Her fingernails were red. Deep crimson.”
    “I tried everything. Doctors aren’t gods.”
    “I don’t remember much these days.”
    “You’re getting old, Tom. It happens.”
    “Do you think she loved me?”
    Sal remembered how Tom’s wife liked bourbon and ice afterwards. She talked about her cat.
    “You were her husband.”
    They listened to the numbers on the radio. Sal crumpled the lottery ticket.
    “I’ll have that drink now,” said Tom.

About the author:

Jay lives in the D.C. suburbs. He has twenty-three years of experience as a human being