“Beware the red herring,” were her final words. She died with her eyes wide open as if she saw an oncoming car.

Dan Felder, an EMT for the last eight months, went through the motions of checking her vitals, knowing full well the truth. He slowly pulled the sheet over her deformed face. “What the hell did that mean?”

Monica Felder, no relation to Dan (but wow, what a wild coincidence, right?), tapped data onto and into a tablet. She has been an EMT for three years. A lot of people call her Papa, because “Papa Don’t Take No Mess”. I can tell you this, she will just kick your ass if you cross her. “Who knows? People say weird shit in the throes of death.”

“No, what’s a red herring?”

“Oh? A red herring? It’s a literary device where an author deliberately places a significant, almost obvious clue in a story to purposely divert the “audience” from the actual clue.”

“You mean, like how Trump, our current President, says Pocahontas and China like he’s rhyming it with infested vagina, yet denies being a racist?” After hearing himself, he wondered, do I always sound like such a dork?

“Yeah, something like that. It’s more like this. Let’s say that we were characters of a story.”

He nodded slowly while staring at a fourth wall in front of him. He winked.

“And let’s say, that this woman’s death, as well as what she said, was all a ruse to make the “audience” think there was greater gravitas than there actually was.” Deep down, way down inside, she tingled. She loved using and making air quotes.

Dan shifted his weight back and forth, teetering. If he had done this same thing faster, you might have thought that he was extremely cold or needing to pee fierce or both. Monica accepted this as, she should continue with her opinions.

“Personally, I think red herrings are total dick moves, like driving the wrong way down a one-way street knowingly. A lot of people depend on the one-way street being respected properly. A pedestrian must be allowed the luxury of having to only look one-way every once in awhile. Come on. It’s all about fucking up someone else’s shit for the sake of being “superior” and clever. Fuck you, I mean it, fuck you.”

She ran out of words, but was glad to get one more air quote in, as Dan merely ceased to function.

One-Way