KC

I am working on a new short story I hope to submit to the Death Rattle Writers Festival, held annually where I live. The word limit is 5,000, I believe, so I decided to split my story into five sections, each with about 1,000 words.

First section: Introduction to concept and conflict, main characters

Second section: Introduce supporting character, add background and depth to conflict

Third section: Escalation of concept and conflict

Fourth section: Climax

Fifth section: Denouement (like a conclusion, but stories don't really "conclude." It's the closure scene)

Hopefully it works out! For now, here's what I have so far (Don't worry, I'll have people edit it for me):

Had Geoff slammed through the front door five seconds earlier, he would have seen KC, photograph-still, straddling the doorway between kitchen and living room and holding her lungs, half-inflated, just in front of her sternum.

But he didn’t. And when she heard the secondhand Subaru park in the carport, the sound jumpstarted KC into a panic. She ran into the kitchen, skidding around for a hiding place, somewhere to stash her lungs; and without much time to spare, she flung open a cupboard, pulled out the jars of flour and sugar and oats and rice and stuffed her lungs into the almost-too-small space, shutting the cupboard door just as her husband slammed into the entryway.

She pushed the jars against the wall and kept her back to the doorway so the pieces of her body that connected self to lungs didn’t show. At least the veins and arteries weren’t dripping.

“KC?”

“Kitchen!”

Perhaps she should look busy. She started washing her hands.

It was hard to breathe, and her breaths were longer without being deeper, the distance from lung to body resulting in a feeling of lightheadedness. She would have sat down if only she could move without Geoff noticing. Best to reveal one tragedy at a time.

The silver lining: Being attached to the cupboards made the less irregular of the two seem far less dire.

He was in the kitchen now, too, and gave her a thoughtless kiss before turning to grab a soda from the fridge.

“Geoff?”

“Yeah?”

“I got fired today.”

The oven timer beeped, shrill tones replacing the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears, though she could see her veins pulsing on the countertop. Forcing herself, KC turned her head to look back at her husband.

He was staring at the refrigerator door, the muscles in his jaw working and his grip on the soda can tight.

KC turned away again, focusing instead on her attempts to breathe, hands flat on the counter to keep them from trembling.

“Great.”

The timer beeped again, and Geoff shoved the soda into her hands and jerked the oven door open, tearing the towel off the bar on the door to protect his hands as he pulled out the tuna casserole. The entire range shook when he put the 9x13 down on it, and it shook even more when he threw the door closed and jabbed the timer button off.