It’s been a while since I’ve shared a short story from a writing exercise. This morning, I attended my local writers group and we were given pictures for the following categories: Murder Victim, Accomplice, Evidence, Scene of the Crime, Murder Weapon, Something in a Pocket. We were instructed to write a confession to a murder.
The prompts I had were:
Victim: Preacher
Accomplice: Indian contortionist
Evidence: Photo from CCTV
Scene of the Crime: Empty room
Murder Weapon: Poison
In Pocket: Ticket from a parking garage
Here’s my story:
Comfortfoodies.com/winter-comfort-beef-stew/
27 August 2008
Today I want to share with you my recipe for the perfect winter comfort beef stew. This is a recipe that my mother used to make and it was always a hit at our church pot luck dinners.
The beauty of this meal is that you can keep it on the stove and keep adding to it, so you’ll never run out of stew. Or you can freeze it in meal size portions to use at a later date or give it to someone in need.
Growing up, we always had a supply of Winter Comfort Beef Stew in the freezer as mum would have them ready for family and friends who came down with the winter flu, or who had fallen on hard times.
This supply was especially useful in the winter of 1993. I had just discovered that my brother was being abused by our local pastor. He was a slimy individual, yet no one believed my brother when he reported the abuse. Pastor Frank always talked his way out of any allegations and had a gift of turning things around to make everyone think the kid was making it all up.
Pastor Frank would drive my brother out to the local paid car park, and park in quiet corner, do what he came to do, then drop my brother home again. Even the discovery of the parking ticket in his pocket didn’t change people’s minds that Pastor Frank was anything less than a good, upstanding citizen.
I digress. In the winter of 1993, Pastor Frank came down with pneumonia. My mother had her supply of frozen stew, so I saw my chance. I offered to take a meal to Pastor Frank and my best friend, Arjun, came with me.
We went to his home with the meal mum had already heated, and a packet of Rat Sac at the ready. As always, we waved to the CCTV camera Pastor Frank had at the door. We were just another of a long stream of visitors while he was unwell.
We served him stew laced with Rat Sac, and chatted to him while he ate. When he was done, we washed the dishes and said good bye.
The Rat Sac must have done its job as we heard the next day that Pastor Frank was dead. He had been found in the spare room by Mrs Maguire, the parish secretary, and it was reported that he had been poisoned.
My brother was spared further abuse at the hands of Pastor Frank, and so were any other number of young boys. I have no regrets and have never been caught.
Now, here is the recipe for my mum’s Winter Comfort Beef Stew.
I got the idea for the format for this confession from various Facebook writing groups where they talk about confessions being included in food blogs as no one reads the story before the recipe!
