Beginnings
Two
Starke
I’m hard, like plaster tape. Cast on your arm or wrapped shiv slid slow between ribs in the lunch line. Like that.
Raymond fell quiet. Looked into my eyes and slid to the ground blood all smeared and gummed over his smiling teeth. Black lips pulled back tight. Knew we’d got him. Kept on with the eye gaze until they fluttered finally closed. Blood bubbled from his lips and no one saw a thing. Crowd gathered around, I slipped back. Maybe shouldn’t have. Maybe should have kept on in the middle, shiv in my fist and breathing hard. But I didn’t. I slipped back into the crowd and was out on schedule. Rayford Prison’s steel door shut behind me and fresh clean air of fall in my nose and lungs. I breathed deep, scared to death.
From three short stories I hope to send out come January.
