Tom Moses

I hate hospitals, always have.  Everything about these places gets to me, but it’s a temporary discomfort.  Stepping out of the elevator into the recovery ward, the smell assaults my nose instantly.  There’s so much alcohol in the air my arm starts to ache as I pass the nurses station.

Frenchie’s room is just down this hall and I can already hear his voice.  I listen just outside the door as the French bastard lays it on thick to the woman in his room.  Even here, he’s pulling tail like I never could.

Asshole.

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He gathers all his friends in a single place.  He thinks he has me grasping at straws, he thinks I believe Randy and Ricky are capable of all this on their own.  The revenge story is a tired plot, I’ve heard it at least a dozen and recited it on my own at least twice before I was twenty, the son of a bitch has no idea who he’s toying with.

The fucker’s guards go down easy; they’re not even worth a third bullet to make sure.  Guns aren’t very satisfying; a million assholes can squeeze a trigger, some of those assholes actually know what they’re doing.  Fists and blades are what I’m looking for, but I’m not an idiot. All these sons of bitches will be packing at least a nine mil. or even a forty-five. read more »

“…have been burning well into the morning.  The third such fire erupting since the predawn hours, we are still waiting word from Global Securities chairman Marc Spector, but to this hour no one has been able to reach Marc Spector.”

There hasn’t been anything new in the news since before I can remember.  Just a load of heartless hate mongers with their own agendas to push down peoples’ throats.  I wanted to relax for a Saturday, take a load off, rest up and plan my next move; but the phone will probably start ringing in the next few minutes and I’ll have to find something to say to the Press.

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Flames lick my skin; singe the hair at my legs.  I walk through the fire and yet I feel no pain.  I look all around as would a curious child, everything seems so upside down.  It’s like a fever dream, the floor is above me, yet I walk upright…just on the ceiling.  I can feel the prickling texture of the drywall at the bottoms of my bare feet.

It’s so very strange, where am I?

{You humans are funny creatures,} a voice calls out to me, familiar, I’ve heard it sometime before.  I look behind me, expecting to be sucker punched by another pansy but I see nothing.

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Orange burns through the overcast gray the best it can, only succeeding in small efforts to defeat the coming rain.  Across the four-lane street from an old friends’ house, the suns’ last grip on the daylight hours cause my eyes to strain.  The wind is slow and as quiet as the sidewalks are empty.  It’s a ghost town here and an impending sense of dreads takes the forefront of my mind.

All the foot traffic ceases and changes direction before the people come near Manny’s place.  And just like it is some Middle Eastern village in the middle of nowhere, I know something violent is coming.  All the signs are here.  There are no witnesses, no bystanders, even a cops’ cruiser makes a U-Turn at the intersection not twenty yards east of Manny’s small house.

I don’t like this one bit.

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Time inches by in slow motion.  I’m sweating enough to be living in a fever dream and it feels like months since she asked that question.  She’s got a tight grip on my Silver Star, something I was a little too proud of from my stint in Grenada.  I wasn’t even twenty years old, one hell of an idealistic Lance Corporal, a fresh face in Force Reconnaissance and looking to make a name for myself.  Goddamn, I should have died then, just like so many other days.

“Did you?”  She repeats, even though my silence is answer enough, she wants me to say it.  Hell I wouldn’t doubt she wants me to deny it.

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I hand the driver a twenty.  In my slowest, most unbroken English I can manage, he understands my request to wait.  The moment I step from the cab, I take in the deepest breath I think I ever have, for a second I’m actually light headed.

The putrid body odor several paces behind me, my nostrils are definitely thankful.  My heart rate hasn’t taken the chance to calm.  I’m still shaking.  I can feel the blood running through every artery.

I’m not angry.

For the first time all night, I’m not angry.  I’m not numb.

I’m excited.

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Just as evolution takes it part to cleanse the earth of useless species, it can be said the same thing happens to societies.  Small towns will eventually give way to larger districts, small cities and eventually a sprawling metropolitan area will consume what had once been just a small frontier town on the basin of a river.  This is the same sort of story that happens to locales all over the country, but there are few cities quite like River City in the heart of America’s Midwest.  Snuggled in close to a large enough river, smugglers found it home almost two centuries before and until recently the criminal element decided to grow quietly, content with its place in the socio-economic system.  But just as evolution had it in for the dodo, it seemed too that River City was doomed to a life of lessening social grace every year.

Now Entering:  River City, home of the 1993 state champions, girls volleyball team.

Population:  1,203,559

Est. 1798

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It is a starless night, not unlike many winter nights in this city. The clouds pass over the sky, keeping even the moon hidden from sight. Only the dirty yellow that emanates from the rusting posts that curve over the sidewalks provide any light of use.

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