August 5 - "In Reference to Your Recent Communications"

“In Reference to Your Recent Communications”
by Tessa Brown
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * * * (Excellent) Humor

Jessica responds, in detail, to the couple of messages Randolph left on her answering machine breaking up with her.

What can I say? I am a sucker for footnotes. I really enjoyed how Brown took the couple of phone messages left for Jessica and had her breaking down each communication into its individual components, adding her thoughts and beliefs – as accurate or obsessive – to the message, all in an attempt to convince Randolph of the error of his ways. In fact, I bounced back and forth in my sympathy, at once for Jessica and her broken heart, and then for Randolph, because at times it appears that Jessica might be a tad too committed to her part in this relationship. All told, this story was quite hilarious and it’s been a rare thing to come across humor in these stories I’ve read so far this year.

[This story was read on August 5. The review was not posted until later due to laziness on my part.]