The Perfect Ending
Every Writer's Goal - Every Reader's Choice
.....by Richard Koss
Allow me to introduce myself. My name's Benny Burger and I'm a writer. That
is to say, I consider myself a writer. My wife Stella doesn't think I'm
much of a writer though. She thinks I should get a real job like she has
and get up and go to work every morning like she does.
I haven't had a real job in years, ever since I got the bug to write
stories. I like to write short stories and I've had a few published. I
even got paid two hundred bucks for one I wrote two years ago. Besides,
it's 1958 and there's a recession. Real jobs are hard to find.
What I really want to do is write a story with a perfect ending. A story
that would keep the reader in suspense from start to finish and then give
'em a real surprise ending they would never have dreamed of in a million
years. I mean an ending they could never even come close to guessing.
That would be a perfect ending. And that ending would make it a great story
- a story that could make me famous like O Henry or Damon Runyan. Then
Stella wouldn't tell me to get a job. She'd be proud of me.
I've been racking my brains trying to come up with an idea and I think I
finally found it.
I'm going to write about another writer just like me. And he's trying to
write a story with the perfect ending too, just like me. You know, sort of
like I'm writing about a guy who's writing about a guy just like himself,
who's writing about another guy just like himself, etc. etc. I've seen that
before but I don't know what they call it.
Anyway, this guy's got a wife like Stella who works too, and she's always
picking on him the way Stella picks on me. Like this morning, as she was
leaving, she told me the pilot light in the stove was off and she smelled
something funny, like gas fumes. So she called the gas company and they
said they would send someone to check it out.
I've got allergies and she knows my sense of smell is probably not as good
as hers. I honestly can't smell anything funny. But that's how she is,
always making a big deal out of everything.
Well now it's almost noon and I'm coming along pretty well with my story.
In fact, I'm almost done. I've just got to put the finishing touches on my
surprise ending, just like this writer in my story. He's kind of stuck on
his ending too, so he keeps smoking cigarette after cigarette.
Smoking helps him think, just like it does me. Except that Stella took my
lighter and I can't find any matches lying around. So I guess I'll have to
get up from my typewriter for a second and go into the kitchen and light my
cigarette with the matches Stella always keeps on top of the stove. Then
I'll be able to think better and figure out a real dynamite ending to my
story.
Epilogue
UPI Services, November 30, 1958
Readers Digest's annual award for best amateur short story was given to a
Mrs. Stella Burger of Chicago, Illinois, for her story, "The Perfect
Ending." In accepting the award, Mrs. Burger said she felt she should
share it with her late husband, Benny Burger, because she merely finished
the story, started by him.
Mrs. Burger was also in the news recently, for winning a lengthy court
battle with the Omaha Mutual Life Insurance Company, when a jury ruled that
her husband's death in their household explosion was accidental.
Mrs. Burger said the $400,000 double indemnity policy proceeds would enable
her to quit her job and embark on a new career as a writer and added,
"Benny would be very proud of me."
