Free Lethal Trajectories by Michael Conley

chair, and there will be a thorough investigation as to whether or not the White House is violating a long-standing treaty with Japan. Furthermore …”
    Veronica turned off the radio to take a cell-phone call from her daughter. Mandy was in trouble again. They both agreed to talk about it when she got home. Perplexed, she drove by her favorite Gas-Go station and decided she’d better turn back and fill her empty gas tank.
    She was horrified to see gas had increased from $6.14 per gallon this morning to $6.57 now. While the church gave her a car allowance, it was painful to see that a ten-gallon fill-up on her Ford hybrid would now cost close to seventy bucks. She could see why making ends meet was often the number-one topic in her Life Challenges group. Offerings were also down at the church, and she feared they might have to lay off a couple of office workers to make budget.
    As she pulled out of the station, she flipped the Wellington Crane show back on. Senator Collingsworth was no longer speaking, but she listened to the self-proclaimed “great one” rail against the administration. “We are in great trouble, folks, and have been since the BM boys came into power. Burkmeister, who purports to be a Republican, is really a starry-eyed liberal, and his sidekick, Clayton McCarty, an Independent party member, has no allegiance to anyone but the left wing whackos and Marxists he represents. Together, they are ruining this great country of ours.
    “Now I tell you all this because, as I reported earlier, my impeccable sources have told me that President Burkmeister checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center this afternoon for reasons unknown. Reporters at today’s Rose Garden press conference also mentioned how sickly the president looked, an observation that has been made after several recent presidential appearances. I can’t tell you for sure what all of this means, but I can say that while Burkmeister is grossly incompetent and out of touch with reality, Clayton “Lefty” McCarty could be downright dangerous if anything ever happened to Burkmeister. We’ll keep you posted on this one, my friends, but remember you heard it first on the Wellington Crane show.”
    Veronica turned the radio off as she pulled into the driveway of Maureen O’Malley, a forty-seven-year-old widower suffering from chronic alcoholism. While talking to alcoholics was not new to Veronica, she had to remind herself that calls like this were best handled by sharing her own experiences in the hopes that the alcoholic would see parallels in their own story. She walked up to the house and waited a minute after ringing the doorbell.
    Maureen, still dressed in her bathrobe, greeted Veronica with a smile greatly at odds with her bloodshot, teary eyes. Like most alcoholics, Maureen probably thought her circumstances were unique, and Veronica decided to let her vent before talking. She listened for awhile before taking her cue from Maureen’s tearful statement, “I don’t expect you to understand, Pastor.”
    “As a matter of fact,” Veronica responded, “I do understand, because I was once in your shoes.” She could see Maureen was taken aback by her comment. “I started drinking when I was a teenager, and it became a larger part of my life as I got older. When my husband, Avery, a Marine Corps captain, was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, I went totally off the deep end. Thank goodness my parents were there to help raise my two kids, because I wasn’t much of a mom.”
    Veronica could see Maureen’s interest pick up as she continued.
    “At first, I would drink only in the evenings after the kids were in bed, but that quickly changed. I soon started to drink during the day, and before long I became an ‘item’ in town. I would drive my pickup into town and drive home in a blackout drunk, unable to remember anything. The blackouts were horrifying. Then one morning I woke up in a hospital with a broken arm and lacerations all