Scott Kauffman and "I'll Find My Own Way Out"

Enjoy this short story by award winning writer, Scott Kauffman, whose new novel, Revenants, is forthcoming this January.

I'LL FIND MY OWN WAY OUT
By Scott Kauffman
“Those two just threw themselves into everything, and we told each other that’s the pluck one must dig down deep to discover if you’re to play out the hand dealt you. Then this February the Frederick boy, Cody I think, spotted exhaust pluming out from under their garage door as he biked his early morning paper route and ran across to the Watsons. We have here only a volunteer department, mostly made up of us aging vets, and it was some minutes before we pulled our clunker of an engine up out front. Not that it mattered. Doc Morgan pronounced them dead since midnight. Such a waste. We needed them. Needed them indeed.”

The pastor leaned forward, hands folded before him on the glass desktop as might a man of faith not yet ready to relinquish his prayer. “So have you told their son yet?”

An iron-haired Marine Corp major looked up from his notepad. He shook his head.

“No. Not yet. Mission critical for us is first to get our facts straight. Absolutely straight. You said you served in the military?”

“Yes. As a chaplain.”

“Then you can appreciate. This isn’t something we want to fubar for our sergeant.”

“No. Certainly not. How’s he doing?”

“Ten times better than I’d be if they’d kept me locked up in solitary for five years, though our people say his English skills degraded, degraded considerably, but we’ve got our crackerjack speech therapist working with him.”

“He’s going to be all right then?”

“He’ll be better. Back to the way he was? Well, who’s to say. What with everything. They tell me it’s mostly up to him.”

“Isn’t it always. Up to us I mean.”

“That’s what we drill into them.” The Marine major’s thumb clicked his pen. “You seem troubled, Pastor.”

“I am. Troubled in my not understanding.”

“What exactly?”- See more at: http://adelaidemagazine.org/scott_kauffman.html#sthash.wSoDOlIJ.dpuf