Mrs. Willie
Holiday flash fiction reposted from Instant Noodles Magazine
The little boy, maybe three years old, sits in the basket of the shopping cart and watches me, fascinated. I smile and give a little wave, but he’s too awestruck to respond. It’s understandable. Three-year-olds see a silver beard on a thick old man wearing a watch cap against the cold, and it’s obviously Santa. They don’t question why Santa would be in the baking aisle of a Shoprite supermarket in December instead of the North Pole.
The little boy points, and his mother looks up. She smiles, I smile back, but then she says, “He does look like Santa, doesn’t he?”
She means no harm, but it annoys me anyway. The fascinated stare of a child is one thing, but the comment from an adult makes me feel fat and old, wounding my vanity.
Back home, the dog and I go for a walk. Chloé looks good in her black and red sweater. No snow this season yet, but they think it might be coming tonight. It’s overcast and grey and the clouds look bloated.
A tan sedan pulls up beside us. It’s my neighbor, Mrs. Willie. Mrs. Willie is not her name; Willie is her dog. I have no idea what her actual name is. I have no idea of nearly any of my neighbor’s names. I know who their dogs are, though. She will be forever Mrs. Willie.
She’s upset. “I’m looking for my dog, he got out and ran away,” she says. “He’s little, black with white on his face. Have you seen him?”
“I know who Willie is,” I tell her. She’s near eighty, I think, and I’m not sure she recognizes me. “I haven’t seen him but I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Thank you. I want to find him before the snow comes.”
I hope she finds him. I hope she can drive around looking for her dog, her eyes everywhere other than the road in front of her, without running into a tree or a parked car.
Chloé and I make our way around and come up to Mrs. Willie’s house. Her car is back in the driveway. Maybe she found him. I’m not optimistic, though.
At the end of her block who do we see walking toward us in the middle of the street but Willie. With the expression on his face and the bounce in his step, he looks like he has been out drinking and smoking cigars and playing poker, trotting back laden with his winnings and the phone numbers of a few girl dogs.
I lift him up in my arms, and the three of us walk back to Mrs. Willie’s house. She is relieved and delighted.
“I’ve been so worried!” she says, taking Willie, giving him a hug.
“No problem,” I say. “I’m just glad we found him.”
“Thank you,” she says as she gently closes the door. “Thank you, Santa!”
I don’t mind at all.
'Mrs. Willie' is reposted from the ‘Holiday Noods’ issue (Volume 4, Issue 3, 2024) of Instant Noodles Magazine, the online literary periodical of Current Words Publishing. For their end-of-year issue they select brief, lighthearted pieces reflecting the spirit of the holidays. About the story: The incident in the supermarket is true; rather, it is true quite often around the holidays, kids looking at me with suspicion and cautious optimism. The rescue of Willie is also based on a true event, though it happened over a decade ago, with our previous dog, both of them now romping in the clouds, both of them missed. It would double the length of the story to fully convey the image of little Willie strutting right down the middle of the street toward us, full of swagger. 'Mrs. Willie' is quite elderly now, and we still wave to her as we walk around the neighborhood. We know her real name, but we never use it.
