Two men entered, wearing respiratory masks. They came over to the register and looked at Martin, who just looked back in disbelieve. "What's with the masks?" The two men walked around the counter. "Hey, look, I don't work here. Nobody is here, I don't know where everyone is. This might sound crazy, but what year is it? Where am I?" The two men grabbed Martin by his arms and started dragging him outside. "Wait! Stop! Talk to me, please!" The two men ignored him. Outside, there was a parked van. The side doors opened, and another masked was waiting inside....
Once he had left it because absolutely clear that I missed him. Before he had left it wasnt so clear. Not at all. In fact, I had fully expected to breathe a sigh of relief once the door closed and I never had to look at his face again. Once it actually happened it was different. Much different.
It made no sence. Well, maybe it did. I had never been very nice. To him, I mean. The times I had snapped could be counted on my fingers. One two three four five six...
He hadn't left any of those times....
I shot my butler.
No, actually, I did.
Yea, I know what you're thinking. "This lady's crazy if she's just gonna write about shooting her butler as if it's no big deal. She's probably writing from jail."
Well, I'm not in jail. He's actually fine. It was just.... In the craziness of that day... I didn't even know it was him. One minute there was no one there but the smoke in my eyes and screams in my ears, and the next moment I had a gun in my hand and there was the butler. He took a step toward...
I didn't take her seriously. I mean everyone cheats. At least that's what I told myself. I can't imagine my face when she walked in. I remember her words, though. Or rather, her word.
"Mom!"
Everything else was blades and blood. The woman was like a ninja - I would have sworn there were two or three of her. It seems like everything from the past few months flashed before my eyes in seconds.
"We shouldn't," I had protested. "Rachel is...well, she deserves better. We really..."
Rachel's mom was unbelievably gorgeous. Being a yoga instructor hadn't hurt her physique one...
The lead ninja laughs. "You are a fool, Senzi," he says through his mask. "Never make a boast that you cannot back up with action!"
They have me surrounded, five on each side, and one nimbly crouching on the tracks behind me, ready to leap away once the train came too close. I had no such route to safety; the points of their katanas promised a quick death should I stray from the rails.
All I have is my own katana, and my pride.
The ninjas continue to mock and jeer. I will be dead in seconds, they think. I...
There was a stage. A microphone. A guy with a guitar and another at a piano. One spotlight trying to mark out everything up there and missing the edges. And that was it. If the audience in the jazz bar had been expecting anything more, anything grander or, well, jazzier, they were disappointed. Most were. It was a good place to be disappointed in.
It was a good place to spend money when it had nowhere else to be spent too. That’s mostly what these people were doing. Spending money that they didn’t know what else to do with. Spending...
It wasn't my fault. It couldn't have been. She was dead when I got there.
I know my fingerprints were on the gun. It was my gun, of course my fingerprints were on it. Yes, I was the last one to see her alive. But that was hours before she died. I do stand to inherit a large sum of money. I loved her. Why would I kill her over something like that?
The CCTV could easily have been doctored. Besides, you don't see the killer's face. It must be a coincidence that she and I have the same build....
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. And the funniest thing is, I'd been waiting for this moment for three years. Margaret, me, alone in Randy's apartment all night. Was she even asleep? Was she playing possum? I held my breath to see if I could hear her sleeping. But Randy's air conditioner was too loud, and Randy was clearly snoring in the loft bed. I shifted on the couch. My skin had stuck to it; it felt and sounded like I'd ripped a bandaid off.
Margaret didn't move. She had to have heard it. I determined she must...
Leave me behind as you do is because of my fault. The fault you saw in me is the one you said you'd fix, it's the fault you spoke to me about while we sat on the bus, and I still had a smile, and a home, I still had ambition and curiosity as to where I belonged. I sat and stared out the spotted window and saw a man on a bicycle, and the bicycle made a sound both wooden and metallic against the side of the bus, and the lump under the wheels did not come with the...
Drowning in the sea. That was the trick of it. To be seen to swoon, to fall to the bottom. The pretend to expire. It was the pearls that weighed me down. They alway do. Spiros bought them for the moon. That is what he said. The moon. As if the moon had a price. All things had a price. He gave them to me in the back garden of the hotel under a moon that was more red that white. A bad luck moon. But the band played on in the gallery and couples in their best passed under...