DEATH MAKES ME PUKE
1.
The Verizon wireless guy adjusts his glasses and steps up to the front door. He is unaware of the future, but he is aware of the plans shaping it. Somewhere, there is an end.
He knocks twice. Then he knocks once more.
“Just a minute,” says the female voice from inside.
He repositions his glasses again.
The Progressive Auto Insurance woman, Flo, opens the door.
“Hi,” she says, waving. “Can I help you?”
Her apron is fresh and clean.
“Yeah,” he says.
He hits her over the head twice, then once more with the shovel that was hidden from her view.
In the woods, he does unforgivable things to her unconscious, soulless body. Things that confession can’t fix. Between two trees, he sheds a tear over the hole in the ground. You can’t hear him now. He buries her, throws up, and leaves.
2.
The Verizon wireless guy sneaks into a house, late at night. It is big and it is smells like college. He looks at pictures along the hutch next to the now broken glass door. Luke Wilson is in every one; with family, alone, with pets. It’s almost arrogant. He creeps to the bedroom.
“Who’s there?” asks Luke from beneath his silk sheets.
“It’s me.”
“Who are you?”
“You’re nemesis.”
He suffocates Luke Wilson with a milky orange pillow. He cries. He vomits in Luke’s master bathroom, missing the toilet. Then, he vanishes. You can’t hear him now.
3.
The Verizon wireless guy scratches his scalp. Dawn. The rising sun penetrates his hairline. He sits at the water’s edge somewhere along the coast of North Carolina; maybe the Outer Banks.
It is sad. He has a backpack full of rocks.
A breeze pushes some of the tears off of his cheeks. The ocean is chilly. He is going to kill himself.
He points to the sky, “You tricked me!”
A jogger hears him from a couple hundred yards away, but does not recognize the voice. The smell of low tide lingers, almost visible. He convinces himself that the aroma is what made him spit up and gag.
“No more,” he whispers to the sand.
The Verizon wireless guy ties the bag around his torso and walks as deep as he can into the water. You can’t hear him now.
(Glen Binger has AT&T. He is a Broad Set Writing Collective member and edits 50 to 1. High Five! He is also a pro at being bro.)
(Background by Rodrigo Alonso Sánchez López. A Rodrigo le gusta trotar en la playa y correr, jugar con perros, dibujar, pintar, escribir.)