I saw her again today, shifting effortlessly across the floor. I looked at her as if I hadn’t seen her everyday for the last five years. This woman was known to many but truly understood only by me. Her strength and beauty complimented each other.
This woman was recently involved in a long relationship that ended just as quickly as it started. She was officially single but still married. The process of separation had taken place and she was adjusting. I, on the other hand, have been single for quite some time now. The chance needs to be taken…my attraction to this woman has grown stronger with each passing day. And let it be known, that this attraction of mine is not just physical, but also mental. Talking with this woman stimulates every brain cell and satisfies my thirst for a listening ear.
You could just smell summer in the air. Boy and girls released sounds of joy. The lord of lords had blessed us with a truly exquisite day. It smelled of pine with a slight hint of dogwood. Everyone there was attending the Conference Championship game for my old high school. The game was almost over and our home team, “The Raider’s,” was about to lose by a five-point margin with less than a minute left. But we had the ball and were driving down the field. The stadium was packed with die-hard football fans hoping for a great game, but I was praying for a win. I stood, looked around, and admired the entire splendor that surrounded me. The sky was layered in dark blue clouds moving to the east. While dressed in a short set with a tee shirt and sandals, I noticed the clouds moving faster and the afternoon air changing. The wind was blowing a nasty storm in from the west and it was headed this way fast. The seemingly perfect day was quickly proving to be different. Then again, all of god’s days are perfect in his perfection. The noise lowered at the stadium when everyone started to feel tiny droplets of rain. We all knew we wouldn’t make it to our cars in time, and with a potentially exciting game coming to an end we all decided to stick the last few seconds out.
The fire raged on as onlookers grieved. They were all wondering how such a tragedy could happen. The stench of charred bodies was starting to overwhelm me. A single discarded cigarette had started this fire. I stood there befuddled in front of the building and counted my blessings. I was glad to have been one of the few that escaped. I could only think of the advice that man gave me that day…
I was walking down Tenth-Avenue on a gloomy Monday morning when I spotted a man exiting his car. I noticed his lights were on and yelled out,
“Hey buddy, your lights are on!”
He turned to the Lincoln, reached in the door and turned them off. He then said,
“Hold up a minute. I just want to thank ya for ya help. I had planned on being here for a while and it would’ve made my day really nasty if my car didn’t start when I got back. So in return for ya hospitality I’m going to give you some advice.”
Another day at the office he thought as he stepped onto the subway platform. He moseyed along the walkway unaware of his surroundings. A draft caught a piece of his battered overcoat so he wrapped himself tightly with the drawstring.
“Mr. Lon!” someone yelled. “How’s the weather up there?” the voice said in a teasing manner.
Yorz A. Lon, Ph.D. turned around and there was the same man that had met him at the gate for three years now. Come to think of it Yorz still couldn’t recall his name, just that he always had something to say about his six foot seven inch frame. Yorz shrugged him off and kept on walking. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes this morning. It was Tuesday for God’s sake; nobody is in a good mood on a Tuesday. Yorz stopped at the shoeshine booth to get a touch up. There was supposed to be a very important meeting today that he wasn’t looking forward to. He took a deep breath, sat still, and let old Charlie shine his designer shoes. Old Charlie was reliable and was there every day. Sometimes Yorz would stop, sometimes he wouldn’t. Either way, that fifty year old black man would be there waiting for someone to place a foot in front him. Charlie wasn’t much for conversation, with his lisp and all those crooked teeth, but he was a cheery fellow. Charlie finished his work and it was immaculate as usual. Yorz tipped Charlie handsomely and abandoned the chair. Yorz starts to walk off and Charlie speaks to him with a serious glare in his eye, “Those shoes are clean enough to die in.”
We had reached the end of the wood line and saw an opening ahead. The cherry recruit hurried forward trying to free himself of the thick undergrowth. Everyone else knew to not be so anxious, but we were glad we didn’t have to be walking through the undergrowth too. Just as he cleared about twenty feet into the opening he disappeared. We all looked at each other, befuddled, and moved forward swiftly. Once we got to his location we found that he had fallen into a Punji trap. We looked inside the hole and saw sharpened bamboo sticking up through his mangled body. For a short moment before his death, the cherry’s hand was extended and his eyes were cold and as morbidly focused as a crow, perched over prey. I was horrified and nearly regurgitated.
Just then a thunderously quick zip went past my ear and my radio guy fell. Then another hit my demolitions guy.
It took only a moment to dodge the bloodthirsty mob that gathered in the moonlight. Some fight had broken out between two road-raged, drivers. It had violently escalated into the streets outside of a local bar. In this small town, this type of action drew a sizable downtown audience. I, on the other hand, decided to steer clear of the mayhem. I wasn’t interested in observing…besides; I couldn’t have made my way through the crowd to see anyway. I fastened the top two buttons on my favorite starter jacket to block the nippy autumn breeze. My nose was runny and my hands were already numb. My feet were aching from a grueling twelve-hour shift at the chicken farm. I had walked this less than scenic route for three years now and it is as always. Nothing ever changes around this boring town. The traditional, eighty-year old general store is still standing beside the newly renovated police station and the town clock stopped working years ago.
Let me tell you what happened to me, you’re not going to believe this. So I’m at the bar with some friends treating myself to a few drinks like I normally do to unwind after a hard days work – when suddenly, a sweet smell lifted my head from my cognac. That’s when I heard those heel taps and saw her shifting effortlessly across the floor. Her silhouette held my attention with the strength of a rock climber’s grasp. She immediately struck me with a penetration that I had not encountered before. My pulse raced and I struggled to clear my head of unclean thoughts. This poisonous spider had spun her web perfectly, and I was caught in it as her prey.
In other news, the infamous Valley Villain, well known around the town of Hodge for his abduction’s and murder’s of helpless young men and women, is scheduled to be executed Thursday, June 22 at 6:15pm by lethal injection. He was convicted over three years ago and is now nearing the end of his dreaded reign. He horrified the town of Hodge for 16 months during this saga. He would abduct unsuspecting teenagers and tie them up in the basement of his home three miles from the town meat market where he worked. He would then decapitate them, and keep their heads for trophies. The police had an easy time catching and prosecuting him because he left his victims’ heads in his basement floating in jars. Gruesome as this crime seemed, all the people who knew Victor Valaho, the town butcher of Clean Cuts, a subsidiary of Labinnac Cuts, would describe him as a friendly and polite person that kept to himself. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. Although he was prosecuted and sentenced easily, he never revealed the whereabouts of the bodies and they were never found. This disturbed many people and led to an extended investigation that never uncovered the bodies. Some people speculated that he ate his victims. Since he was the only butcher in town there was other speculation that we all ate them.
Cinique 