This was a fifteen-minute prompt. I had to write something in 15 minutes that included the phrase “That’s Not How It Happened. I missed a couple of quotation marks, which I’ve put in. Otherwise this is how it was submitted.
I wasn’t there. If anyone asked, I wasn’t there. But no one ever asked and I was always there. Friday nights at nine. I was “known to be” at a club across town. No one ever asked.
Every Friday, like clockwork, she came into Room 524 at 9:10. All you need to know is that “she” is my wife, and like clockwork he came into Room 524 at 9:15. All you need to know is that “he” was not me. I was in adjoining Room 525. I’d put a pinhole in the wall. It was almost obscured by a hibiscus or whatever the green plant was. A small camera was there, attached by wire to my laptop.
I had plenty of video. If she thought she’d take me to the cleaners in the divorce she was mistaken. She’d be lucky to keep whatever dress the skank wore when she got to court.
I had more than enough. But this wasn’t for my lawyers. This was for me. She was pretty and I liked to watch. It was the only time I ever saw her naked anymore. So I watched on my laptop. I was, um, making a personal adjustment to my attire and looked away for a moment. It’s when I heard the shot. I looked and he was shot.
I rushed into the room and before I knew it she’d handed the gun to me. Which, like a fool, I took. I stood there staring at the blood and the body.
Cops were there in minutes. “Your wife said you burst in and shot him.”
“That’s not how it happened. I’ve got video.”
They went into the room. My laptop was gone.
“That’s not how it happened.”
Terry Brewer, Author 