Short, Fast, and Deadly Issue Seven Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela 24 January 2010 Featuring: Tina Hacker Daryn Houston Trevor Mcpherson Helen O’Brien Serena Tome Changming Yuan
I wait for the bus. The cars tread carefully through the intersection. A black sedan four cars behind gets impatient, swerving to get a good look ahead. I can tell by the suit he's late for a meeting. The light turns green; he pulls into the right-turn only lane. He picks up speed, about to cut. His wheels hit the river in front of me. Our faces meet through the water. Read his lips: Sorry. Nothing but pitiful looks.
She was about as skinny as a person could be without falling apart; all lines and angles, an absolute Mondrian of a girl.
"Momma was a flagpole and daddy was a magic wand - I had no chance," she wept to anyone that would listen.
In college she met the bastard son of an inkwell and a protractor, an asymmetrical Rorschach of a man. She occasionally hung in his gallery, but she never made the permanent collection.
Death likes to taunt, loves to play. It leads me on a leash, choking my thoughts if they stray from its plans or break its rules. It blindfolds me, absorbs color and form, leaving unyielding shadows. When sleep calls a recess, death tosses dice into my dreams.
My numbers are defeated by seven, eleven. I wait for the chance to pass the dice to another player. But the croupier compels me to try my luck again.
