Loved it, Wolfram. It's like one of those ads where you see the guy in a little red convertible next to a blonde, and then the camera moves around to the side of the car and the blonde is an Afghan hound. Nicely done.

Couldn't get it down to fewer words:

Something caught, just at the edge of all she knew. Drugs did an efficient job of weighting down the pain, but they weighted her, too. Most of the time she had no awareness of herself: her raddled body, her surroundings, people who moved in and out of the space she existed, mute, immobile, blinded by the lack of will to open her eyes. Not even memories were available to her in those brief moments she recalled her own existence. This new thing prised the soft dark covers off her awareness, allowed a gorgeous prismatic light to filter into the space her universe had narrowed to. She turned toward it, to something which not only relieved the monotony, but was in itself beautiful

Money can't buy you . . .

There were more long envelopes with clear windows in the mailbox. They piled them on the kitchen table and started opening and unfolding.

They stared at the pile, then slowly looked at each other.

"That's all of them, right?"

"The credit cards, the doctors, the hospital--"

"The hospital said to resubmit the bill now that the disability is official, it'll go down."

They started to grin, wrote checks, and scrawled PAID IN FULL on every invoice.

The Last Day

People were definitely looking at him differently.

Some of them stared contemptuously as he passed - others, especially some of the older ones, with a strange mixture of humor and pity.

His attempted smile rapidly melted back into his somber face, and he felt an anxious sadness.

He was no longer young and not really sure he was better off.

Even the clothes felt alien, and he self-consciously fiddled with the buttons.

His escort gave him the thumbs up and opened the final door.

He gingerly walked through but was not prepared.

The unnatural openness filled him with sudden despair, and he had to fight the urge to run back inside.

20 years with good behavior, he thought, and now I wish I had 20 more.

He sighed and bravely made his way to the bus stop.

Oh, yeah, lovely, Wolfram. Freedom as a double-edged sword.

Connie, I like the glee you get across.

Thanks, Beverly. I really loved your death-as-freedom piece, both for its rich visual imagery and for its subtlety.

Connie, I can totally relate to that kind of freedom.

I listen to all the stories and such about credit card debt, and I yell at the TV "Not me!"

This is flash fiction rather than a drabble. I really think cutting this to 100 words would lose too much good stuff.
=========================

Dead Alice

Nobody ever mysteriously disappeared from her restaurant that did not deserve to, she always insisted. Anyway, the police never proved a thing. Dead Alice lived, if that was the right word, in a cloud of rumors - most of them started by her. She was palely pretty; anyone could see that she was 22 at most. Anyone could have seen that for at least 40+ years - since THAT MAN wrote THAT SONG. (One of Dead Alice's supernatural gifts was the ability to speak in capital letters.)

She denied being the original Alice in the stories. "Dodson would not have known a fact if it had bit him". Her tone implied this was something she had tested personally.

No one ever saw Dead Alice eat or drink, at least no one who survived. To those rude enough and brave to enough to ask directly, she always replied: "I'm sure you would not wish to pry into intimate details."

Dead Alice slew monsters. "I won't tolerate anything in my territory that tries to be scarier than me."

Very nice, Typo! I love that last line.

Freedom

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
“Doing what?”
“The way you’re walking, with new weight. The way your eyes look.”
He shrugs.
“The Process is one of the most painful ordeals you can subject yourself to. Mentally, emotionally, physically…”
“But the payoff. Strength, speed, mental clarity. I was a god, once upon a time, atop Olympus. I was there once, I can be there again.”
“You were a target!”
He doesn’t answer.
“Is it worth it?”
He doesn’t answer.
“What will it gain you? What can such sacrifice get you aside from power?”
He smiles.

Ticket to Ride

She sat at the table, head bent over the empty coffee cup. An envelope with a thick sheaf of bills inside rested under her hands. There had been more money in the cookie jar than she realized; she’d been afraid, no, ashamed, to count it. Months ago, her parents had tried to confine her. Little did she realize the freedom they were offering her until it was too late.

The waitress came by and refilled her cup. She picked it up, took a sip of the dark, bitter liquid and waited some more.

The bus station opened in an hour.