my sweet Velma Jean

my sweet Velma Jean

fiction
edward w pritchard

I was at the office Christmas party for my wife Velma and she had went with co-workers to look at pictures to memorialize this years party and I was wandering a little bored around the company owners house.

Next to the kitchen, near two large walkout doors several young women sat on blankets on the floor each admiring a new baby. Out of duty to my wife more than curiosity I stopped to look at the new baby too. The new baby was a monkey. Dressed in a new pink outfit, several of the women were giving the new Mother presents for the baby, but the baby was definitely a monkey.

Later, but before I found my wife and before I got to tell Velma about the monkey, the Company owner's wife, our hostess here at the party asked me to help answer the phone for a few minutes which were very busy because customers were calling in to congratulate the employees here at the Company on another very successful year. I took messages and wrote down the basic sentiment of each call on a Company phonepad for about ten minutes.

When I went to where the pictures were being sorted Velma wasn't around. A couple of people were over at the piano playing Christmas carols; not wanting to sing I took a stack of the pictures from the table that were being sorted to find prospects for this years yearbook. As I walked around the house I leafed through the pictures.

Two of the pictures were definitely of Velma. They were taken from the front up towards her eye's and were of the compromising variety, involving a short length of white frayed clothesline style rope, but the pictures definitely were of my sweet Velma Jean. By now I had walked through most of the company owners house looking for my wife Velma but hadn't found her yet.