Midnight. My feet sink into the sand as I stand on the edge of the water, watching the waves break in the dim light of the moon. One after another they crash against the shoreline, depositing seaweed, shells, driftwood, and other things, both living and non-living, onto the beach. For the past week I’ve been […]
Bruce was humming as he typed on his computer keyboard and it was driving his roommate crazy.
“Can you shut the fuck up?” Harris barked at him. “Please?”
“I’m making it hum,” Bruce said. “That’s what the editors want. It says so in the writer’s guidelines. Make it tight. Make it hum. So I’m making it hum.”
Harris sighed. “They want the story to hum, you idiot, not the writer.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Bruce said. “But this is how I get into it. Mind your own business.”
He went back to work, typing and humming.
Next thing you know somebody better call the cops, ’cause some bad shit is goin’ down. Problem is there’s nobody here to call the cops. The only ones here are me and the missus, and the missus can’t call ’cause she’s too busy covering me with her Glock. Besides, she wouldn’t call anyway because that’s not how she rolls. And I can’t call because I’m the one being covered, and I don’t think the missus would appreciate me making any sudden movements, such as taking out my cell phone and dialing 9-1-1. Plus, I’m pretending to be paralyzed and I don’t want to break character. So like I said, nobody’s here to call the cops.
“I can’t move my legs, baby. Please.”
I’m on my back, not moving. As I look from the blue steel barrel of the gun to the blue steel eyes of my wife, I’m not sure which blue steel looks scarier. The look in her eyes is one of murder. She’s dead serious, I can tell. Her finger is tensed on the trigger, and I don’t have to wonder if she has the balls to pull it, I know she does. I know it because it stinks in here, like gunpowder. And there’s hazy blue smoke in the air. And my ears are ringing. And there’s blood dripping out of a hole in my chest.
