A Lot Of Bullets To Spare

[Amerist]

A Lot of Bullets to Spare

Another staccato night under a Detroit sky

steam-smog coughing behind a trucker

the diesel growling, choked up and pluming black smoke.

Play it out, play it out, way down, and tug the hood tighter.

The rain trickles down, but those aren't clouds, it's karma,

claws reaching, fingers scrabbling, dark and gritty --

our bloodstained fingertips.

Like gasoline fumes burning, nostrils flared against the

bright glare of a lit match, and the cherry of a near-spent cigarette.

Nicotine burn.

Bleeding out that hoarse tightness in the lungs, hands cupped

too close to lips. Like your soul, breathed out white between teeth.

Reptilian tail, scales glistening against the dirty-hotel-window gleam.

Iguana's eyes blink slowly, crafty, tongue tasting air as it follows

her across the room.

The click of a Sig Sauer, slide yanked hard into place,

the silver taste of the shell locked into place--

"the hard sensation of death, alive under your fingertips."

The g-man'll be roughing up the girl at the front desk about now:

"What room is she in," he asks. his eyes are black like steel, certain

and willing to do his worst even to an innocent.

She gulps, throat swallowing like an artichoke going down whole, tears

bleed from her eyes and swollen cheek.

"Room 203. Please, room 203. Take the key."

The desk girl is weeping behind her desk know; the g-man is coming

up the stairs--he doesn't trust the elevator. She could have booby trapped it.

The hallway is long and slender, the rooms numbered sequential, like falling dominoes.

Footsteps betray his approach.

He knows that she's waiting. But he's ready.

His hands prime his gun, shotgun, automatic, shot bigger than quarters --

he'd seen a demonstration, blew chunks out of a fridge in a Lansing junkyard.

The iguana hisses softly at the door as he stands outside, his feet casting black

lines at the threshold, blurring out the golden light of the hallway. He lifts the shotgun.

The Sig raised. She waits, counting every beat of her heart.

The door splinters and vanishes into a cloud of splinters and the reptile runs.

The room beyond is empty -- there's a book on the floor:

HOLY BIBLE.

He raises his eyes and meets God.

A .357 bullet, sealed with a kiss, breathes his last thought out into the room.

She steps over his twitching limbs, crooning and calling to the lizard across the room.

"Come along, Sheila," she says. "We'll find a different place. A safer place.

Maybe someplace that doesn't smell."

Iguana in tow, tote already packed, she's once again in her beaten up BMW and on the road.

Chicago? Toronto? Who knows what the next distant mile will bring.

The g-men only come one at a time, and she's got a lot of bullets to spare.

[jadnifer]

is good! nice use of descriptive terms

[Lanaia]

A Lot of Bullets to Spare

Another staccato night under a Detroit sky

steam-smog coughing behind a trucker

the diesel growling, choked up and pluming black smoke.

Play it out, play it out, way down, and tug the hood tighter.

The rain trickles down, but those aren't clouds, it's karma,

claws reaching, fingers scrabbling, dark and gritty --

our bloodstained fingertips.

Like gasoline fumes burning, nostrils flared against the

bright glare of a lit match, and the cherry of a near-spent cigarette.

Nicotine burn.

Bleeding out that hoarse tightness in the lungs, hands cupped

too close to lips. Like your soul, breathed out white between teeth.

Reptilian tail, scales glistening against the dirty-hotel-window gleam.

Iguana's eyes blink slowly, crafty, tongue tasting air as it follows

Totally AWESOME!

her across the room.

The click of a Sig Sauer, slide yanked hard into place,

the silver taste of the shell locked into place--

"the hard sensation of death, alive under your fingertips."

The g-man'll be roughing up the girl at the front desk about now:

"What room is she in," he asks. his eyes are black like steel, certain

and willing to do his worst even to an innocent.

She gulps, throat swallowing like an artichoke going down whole, tears

bleed from her eyes and swollen cheek.

"Room 203. Please, room 203. Take the key."

The desk girl is weeping behind her desk know; the g-man is coming

up the stairs--he doesn't rust the elevator. She could have booby trapped it.

The hallway is long and slender, the rooms numbered sequential, like falling dominoes.

Footsteps betray his approach.

He knows that she's waiting. But he's ready.

His hands prime his gun, shotgun, automatic, shot bigger than quarters --

he'd seen a demonstration, blew chunks out of a fridge in a Lansing junkyard.

The iguana hisses softly at the door as he stands outside, his feet casting black

lines at the threshold, blurring out the golden light of the hallway. He lifts the shotgun.

The Sig raised. She waits, counting every beat of her heart.

The door splinters and vanishes into a cloud of splinters and the reptile runs.

The room beyond is empty -- there's a book on the floor:

HOLY BIBLE.

He raises his eyes and meets God.

A .357 bullet, sealed with a kiss, breathes his last thought out into the room.

She steps over his twitching limbs, crooning and calling to the lizard across the room.

"Come along, Sheila," she says. "We'll find a different place. A safer place.

Maybe someplace that doesn't smell."

Iguana in tow, tote already packed, she's once again in her beaten up BMW and on the road.

Chicago? Toronto? Who knows what the next distant mile will bring.

The g-men only come one at a time, and she's got a lot of bullets to spare.

[pomba gira]

wow... really effective... love the descriptive language & the pacing/flow works very well

[maeve]

This is a very powerful piece of work, nicely done..kudoos! It reminds me of Yusef Komunyakaa's work, very strong imagery. Beautiful!

[Amerist]

Thanks, I had a lot of fun writing that one. I took the keywords I was given and came up with a surprisingly good story in between. Most of the time these things come out very abstract, but it's amusing when there's a tale to tell.