The Waiting Pages
The very worst of types launched an unaggravated assault on Henry’s Sunday morning tea-and-reading time. She was the type of egoist who is forever oppressed by the faults and injustices of others despite her general state of enduring innocence and elevated benevolence. She was the type who must verbally express her feelings of oppression with neither pause nor remorse in that higher, “Becky is such a bitch…” register. She was the type that effectively subjected all in audible range to the unwilling role of her Audience and undoubtedly, she believed, her Sympathizers.
Henry murdered this woman in each Universe that he could readily conjure; all but those that left him ultimately paying the price of her insufferable burden. He used the just-in-case Glock 20 stashed down in the bottom of his parallel-Universe backpack. It was an Austrian handgun chambered in 10mm. The 10mm round was originally developed by the FBI so field agents could pack enough portable violence on their persons to blow through walls and car doors while still lethally striking targets on the opposite side of the previously inconvenient barriers. The gun was loaded with some particularly nasty hollow-points. It was overkill in this situation. The assailant was close enough for Henry to raise the weapon with his non-dominant hand and send a projectile cleanly into her right temple without so much as glancing at the sights.
She was empty before the shock of the concussion even registered—reduced to a wilting sculpture of leaking, uncoordinated matter. While there was all the usual mess—airborne bone fragments, wet lumps of mealy material splattered about in a loosely-patterned fashion, pulsing gushes of hot blood gradually receding with a rhythmic, dying beat from out the fresh, biological fountain—the also usual pink-mist blown into the air cast these particular, concurrent scenes in a uniquely dreamy, independent French-flick kind of screen-glow. The silence aided the mystique. Ears were ringing, and there were a few new coffee spills across tabletops and unlucky blouses, but there was no chaos nor screaming. This was not an act of terror, but one of prescribed relief. All in present company shared in Henry’s calm, softly “oooohing” and “ahhhhing” as they studied the same glassy sunlight illuminating the same soft-pink cloud.
As the vapor fell and dissipated, so did the mindless shoulders atop the uncoordinated mass drop. Its back bowed down and to the left, slumping into a precarious assembly leaning ever-further away from an indifferent chair’s center. The Audience shared a timeless breath, eyes unblinking, together anticipating the moment at which the body would imperceptibly tip beyond its natural point-of-balance and yield itself to the work of gravity. And of course it soon did, embracing that mystic moment when its form touched nothing but the air around it, before a lifeless thud distributed its weight with equanimity across the thirsty wooden floor.
A rush of air released from relaxing lungs, followed by a soft and collective, “There.” Indie music faded back in as the ringing-of-ears faded out, quiet conversations resumed, and eyes returned to waiting pages.
Henry murdered this woman in each Universe that he could readily conjure; all but those that left him ultimately paying the price of her insufferable burden. He used the just-in-case Glock 20 stashed down in the bottom of his parallel-Universe backpack. It was an Austrian handgun chambered in 10mm. The 10mm round was originally developed by the FBI so field agents could pack enough portable violence on their persons to blow through walls and car doors while still lethally striking targets on the opposite side of the previously inconvenient barriers. The gun was loaded with some particularly nasty hollow-points. It was overkill in this situation. The assailant was close enough for Henry to raise the weapon with his non-dominant hand and send a projectile cleanly into her right temple without so much as glancing at the sights.
She was empty before the shock of the concussion even registered—reduced to a wilting sculpture of leaking, uncoordinated matter. While there was all the usual mess—airborne bone fragments, wet lumps of mealy material splattered about in a loosely-patterned fashion, pulsing gushes of hot blood gradually receding with a rhythmic, dying beat from out the fresh, biological fountain—the also usual pink-mist blown into the air cast these particular, concurrent scenes in a uniquely dreamy, independent French-flick kind of screen-glow. The silence aided the mystique. Ears were ringing, and there were a few new coffee spills across tabletops and unlucky blouses, but there was no chaos nor screaming. This was not an act of terror, but one of prescribed relief. All in present company shared in Henry’s calm, softly “oooohing” and “ahhhhing” as they studied the same glassy sunlight illuminating the same soft-pink cloud.
As the vapor fell and dissipated, so did the mindless shoulders atop the uncoordinated mass drop. Its back bowed down and to the left, slumping into a precarious assembly leaning ever-further away from an indifferent chair’s center. The Audience shared a timeless breath, eyes unblinking, together anticipating the moment at which the body would imperceptibly tip beyond its natural point-of-balance and yield itself to the work of gravity. And of course it soon did, embracing that mystic moment when its form touched nothing but the air around it, before a lifeless thud distributed its weight with equanimity across the thirsty wooden floor.
A rush of air released from relaxing lungs, followed by a soft and collective, “There.” Indie music faded back in as the ringing-of-ears faded out, quiet conversations resumed, and eyes returned to waiting pages.
