All Gone

By Stephen Dixon

All Gone written by Stephen Dixon, is an exciting short story about justice in the United States. Maria Pierce’s best friend was killed by being shoved onto the tracks of the subway, hitting his head and dying from a blood clot in his brain

all because he tried to help a woman in need. While trying to be a Good Samaritan and help the young girl who was being harassed, Eliot died and the two men who initially pushed him onto the tracks were not found. Distraught with grief, Maria Pierce vows to find her best friend’s killers and bring them to justice. In order to do this, she sits on a bench at the subway every Saturday morning, precisely where Eliot was killed, and waits for the two men to show up again so that they might get the sentence that they deserve. Eventually, a man by the name of Vaughn, who had seen her sitting there every Saturday, decides to talk to her, to find out exactly why she is always sitting there and why she never gets on a train. They become quick friends and Maria discovers that the reason why Vaughn takes the subway every Saturday morning is so that he can spend the day with his daughter who lives with her mother. One day, though, Vaughn does not show up and she later finds out that his ex-wife decided to take their child and moved to Boston which put a quick stop to the weekly visits. Around the same time, the police found the two men who had pushed Eliot onto the tracks and it seemed as if Maria’s dream came true. The two men were only sentenced to one to three years in jail for manslaughter. Through this tale of irony, Stephen Dixon shows that there is no justice.