It’s Christmas time again. Jodie, who lost her teaching job after budget cuts, is on a mission to buy her kids’ gifts by any means necessary. So what does Jodie do? What any good mother would do, rob a gas station. Anna, the clerk, had dealt with Christmas burglaries before, most with similar stories (as Jodie’s). Anna’s apathy, when told to empty the cash register, isn’t lost on Jodie. Jodie reveals she had lost her father days earlier and didn’t care about life. Jodie feels sorry for Anna.

(© 2021 AC)

(Erica Orloff edited this short story. All of my short stories on Kindle are professionally edited.)

(Wattpad, Amazon Kindle.)